Voices quiet when playing DVDs

[lafleur1977]

Hello,

 

We have had a problem for a while now were staff members are trying to play DVD's through their interactive boards. Often the voices will be very quiet while the other sounds are a good volume. Many of the laptops have DVD software installed (windvd, k-lite codec pack etc).

 

Has anybody had this problem? So many staff have this problem, I don't know why they are playing so many films anyway....

 

Thanks

[LeMarchand]

I don't know why they are playing so many films anyway....

 

It is a mystery, isn't it?

 

Anyway, when I've had this problem it's been iffy processing of the surround sound. I cheated and installed The KM Player (watch out for the bundled rubbish) and set it to "downmix to mono". Not an ideal solution, but it worked and they can't tell the difference. Also used TweakUI to add KMP as a DVD Player handler. Your software may have a similar facility already.

[docboggle]

Not experienced this in Windows, but have on a DVD player. As stated by LeMarchand, it is down to the surround-sound - voices are played through the centre speaker. If there is a way to switch it from surround to stereo or mono, this should fix the issue.

[localzuk]

Take a look at using VLC - you can select what sort of sound track you wish to play from the menus there (ie. 2 channel stereo, 5 channel surround etc...).

[Linfit]

This sounds like the issue we had here which my Network Manager Chris found a solution to:

 

Had this Issue here with the KLite codec pack - The problem lay with the AC3 component of the ffdshow audio decoder. Changing the AC3 Decoder from liba52 to libavcodec fixed it straight away (well after a restart) this can be found under programs->Klite codec pack -> Configuration -> ffdshow audio decoder configuration, then the codecs option.

[jamesreedersmith]

Reinstall the codecs afther tha machine is joined to the domain - something in the domain joining process (probably profile related) breaks this.

[ChrisH]

It is something to do with how the system thinks the speakers are set up. We have exactly the same problem if we use Windows Media Player. Instead we get staff to use Media Player Classic. It seems to be assuming you have more than a 2.0/2.1 setup for your speakers under Windows Media Player.

[Duke5A]

It is something to do with how the system thinks the speakers are set up. We have exactly the same problem if we use Windows Media Player. Instead we get staff to use Media Player Classic. It seems to be assuming you have more than a 2.0/2.1 setup for your speakers under Windows Media Player.

 

This is probably your issue right here. I had the exact same problem at home with an HTPC rig. Try this...

 

Control Panel > Sounds and Audio Devices Properties > Advanced (under speaker settings) > select Desktop Speakers

[clareq]

I had the issue with a laptop where the sound card had a karaoke mode which had been turned on. Turned this off and voices returned.

[lafleur1977]

Thanks for all your reply's guys, I will try them out on Monday

[gjdb]

As Linfit said, ffdshow could be the cause of the problem.

We have had the same issues last year and removed ffdshow from our images and just installed a dvd-codec (to be used by windows media player 11) and Media Player classic, all problems where solved with this.

I would say, never install codec packs like k-lite, those packs a so bloated with all kind of unneeded codecs and cause more problems then solving them.

[mac_shinobi]

WMP Classic Home Cinema

 

Media Player Classic - Home Cinema - Video Player

[epoch]

Had same issue with Windows Media Player, this fixed it:

 

Under the Now Playing tab is a small downward pointing arrow.

Click to access options.

Select More Options.

Click on the DVD tab.

Click Advanced.

Tick the Mixer radio box.

Voices were then louder in the mix.

I also selected Noise Reduction, just to get rid of some hiss.

I also selected Dolby Decoder, but noticed no difference through my earbuds plugged into my laptop.

Hope this helps, fixed it for me.

[jerryeight]

make sure all of your codecs are up to date

this is what i love to use

CCCP - Combined Community Codec Pack

[cyr0n_k0r]

Had same issue with Windows Media Player, this fixed it:

 

Under the Now Playing tab is a small downward pointing arrow.

Click to access options.

Select More Options.

Click on the DVD tab.

Click Advanced.

Tick the Mixer radio box.

Voices were then louder in the mix.

I also selected Noise Reduction, just to get rid of some hiss.

I also selected Dolby Decoder, but noticed no difference through my earbuds plugged into my laptop.

Hope this helps, fixed it for me.

 

This is actually not the whole answer. For anyone having this same problem here is the actual fix.

 

epoch was sort of in the right place, but the answer is only 50% right.

 

You need to check the "mixer" checkbox, but you also need to make sure that "normalize matrix" is NOT checked. And because I don't like GUI solutions and I prefer to fix things inside the registry here are the key changes necessary to apply the fix via the registry.

FYI, if you apply this fix via the local machine key it will only fix it for users that have not logged in yet. If you want to fix it for people that have already logged in you will need to apply the key changes to the same path but replace local machine with HKEY_USERS\profileGUID

 

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

 

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\GNU\ffdshow_audio\default]

"isMixer"=dword:00000001

"mixerNormalizeMatrix"=dword:00000000

[camel]

This may be slightly off piste;

 

We had the same symptoms though in a slightly different setup. This happened to any laptop (Mac/Windows) used to play DVDs onto a large hall projector with the sound connected to the mixing desk, PA system. We had great music sound and quality though voices or just anyone talking were virtually silent. This was a major issue and had our PA installer back out to sort it out, which he did.

 

The problem was the 3.5mm jack to a single XLR adapter. XLR being a mono connection and trying to force a stereo signal down it, for obvious and stated reasons, this didn't work and caused the symptoms being described in this thread.

 

This was resolved by our installer through creating us a stereo 3.5 mm jack to 2 XLR, essentially connecting the stereo channels separately all the way back to the mixing desk whereby they were joined to a single channel, similar to a CD, IPod or other stereo channel.

 

Now back to your issue, I'm wondering if there is the possibility of a mono connection anywhere in-between the laptops and the IWB speakers? 3.5mm jack cable? We have had a few of these floating around, I think I've got rid of them all.

 

Our W7, WXP laptops or macbooks don't seem to have experienced this issue on the standard IWB speakers? Sorry if it is off target; but the symptoms sound exactly the same and it may relate to others who are looking at the symptoms.

 

[Didn't realise the thread was an old one, my bad...though my experience may help.]

Edited June 19, 2012 by camel
old thread been dug up, and didn't realise!!