Problems with Sound on HD downloads

J

John Leech

New Member
I'm having a problem with HD recordings downloaded (Opt+ Download) to my PC. The picture is fine, but the sound fluctuates between loud and soft. I'm using VLC 2.1.5. SD recordings are absolutely no problem.

Any suggestions? I can't find any mention of this problem on the forums.
 
The audio stream switches encoding, typically between adverts and programme or programme and inter-programme announcements. This switching used to prevent many media players from playing the soundtrack at all. I suggest the version of VLC you are using is reproducing the different encodings at different perceived volume levels (there is a whole other argument about what the correct relative volume for high and low resolution audio is).

Maybe the settings in VLC allow you to compensate?
 
Black Hole said:
The audio stream switches encoding, typically between adverts and programme or programme and inter-programme announcements. This switching used to prevent many media players from playing the soundtrack at all. I suggest the version of VLC you are using is reproducing the different encodings at different perceived volume levels (there is a whole other argument about what the correct relative volume for high and low resolution audio is).

Maybe the settings in VLC allow you to compensate?
Click to expand...
Actually it's more a constant pulsing throughout. The recordings are all from BBC2 HD (films I took on holiday with me) and they all play fine on the Humax.

However, exploring VLC seems a good route to try.
 
Martin,

Thanks, you've helped solve the problem.

I tried Splash Player Lite as suggested. This was even worse than VLC, it crashed almost instantly. However, it set me thinking. A quick search for problems playing .TS files found someone recommending MPC-HC as the least fussy player. I just tried it and it works beautifully, playing all my 5 files without apparent problems.
 
This is strange. Splash Lite was the first (free) player we found able to render the HiDef .ts at all, and IIRC it had problems with the sound switching unless the recording was cropped to eliminate the switching point. There have been no other complaints about VLC in its latest incarnations (after it caught up with HiDef).
 
I recorded a film last night from BBC 1 (HD) and when I played it back with VLC on my Mac, I couldn't hear most of the dialogue - just the film score. From a random accident, I managed to create a fix by disabling the audio track and then re-enabling it. With MPlayerX, there were no such issues, I suspect because by default it enables an option to remix 5.1 to stereo.
 
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