Video playback is garbled / choppy / stuttering with ALSA audio output

[Forest]

VLC 2.x fails to play many videos smoothly when ALSA audio output is selected. Every 10-30 seconds, the picture gets badly garbled, as if there were packet loss in the video stream. I see the problem most often with high def content.

The problem has been identified upstream, and reportedly fixed in vlc 3.0, but they are dismissive of users wanting a fix for 2.x. Given that this bug exists in the current LTS release and we're likely to be stuck with vlc 2.x for years to come, this is kind of a problem.

I have a pair of patches that apply to both vlc 2.2.2 and vlc 2.2.4. I have been using them with no problems for the past couple of months. Anyone else who wants to test them is most welcome, of course. Patched builds are available for xenial on my PPA:
https://launchpad.net/~foresto/+archive/ubuntu/ubuntutweaks/

[Ubuntu Foundations Team Bug Bot (crichton)]

The attachment "patch 1/2" seems to be a patch. If it isn't, please remove the "patch" flag from the attachment, remove the "patch" tag, and if you are a member of the ~ubuntu-reviewers, unsubscribe the team.

[This is an automated message performed by a Launchpad user owned by ~brian-murray, for any issues please contact him.]

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

This bug was fixed in the package vlc - 3.0.0~rc1-1ubuntu1

---------------
vlc (3.0.0~rc1-1ubuntu1) bionic; urgency=medium

  * Apply patch from LocutusOfBorg to fix the FTBFS.

 -- Simon Quigley <email address hidden> Sat, 16 Dec 2017 16:18:42 -0600