Comment 10 for bug 321028

It seems to get more interesting...

   1. Since everything worked before Intrepid, I though it might be either drivers, specifically, or systems integration (Ubuntu), in general - wasn't that the switchover from ALSA to Pulse?
   2. But since all other audio systems had no similar problems, I suspected AviDeMux - perhaps exposing a problem lower down the stack, or just mishandling it (more likely).

When André said he had similar problems with OSS and SDL (I didn't), I really began to suspect AviDeMux, even though, initially, I just swapped in the new OS under the application.

But perhaps the newer OS (both Intrepid and Jaunty) just were less efficient, exposing the problem?

   1. When I did a reinstall (vs. the original upgrade) on the problematic system) the "default" device for ALSA cleaned up the noise and distortion to the point that it was more usable than my Pulse alternative (that continued to have dropout beats every few seconds).
   2. Then, as a video was playing, I drug the window around with the mouse, leading to substantially increased audio noise!

I think this has to be AviDeMux or maybe both the application and the drivers. Notice the progression (I tested several systems since the last posting). The older Intel audio chipsets have progressively worse trouble with sound (on the newer operating systems), but the oldest, with the faster CPU, didn't have the playback noise, only the sync problem. The newer the chipset the better the audio. AND, reinstalling vs. upgrading made improvements in the playback. Perhaps this is a thread scheduling or priority (or CPU capacity) issue in the application given the newer operating systems?

Case 1 - oldest system - nice sounding audio but rapidly looses sync with the video:

$ sudo lshw -sanitize -class cpu -class multimedia
  *-cpu:0
       description: CPU
       product: Intel(R) Pentium(R) 4 CPU 2.80GHz
       width: 32 bits
       clock: 200MHz
       capabilities: boot fpu fpu_exception wp vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic sep mtrr pge mca cmov pat pse36 clflush dts acpi mmx fxsr sse sse2 ss ht tm pbe pebs bts cid xtpr
  *-multimedia
       description: Multimedia audio controller
       product: 82801EB/ER (ICH5/ICH5R) AC'97 Audio Controller
       vendor: Intel Corporation
       physical id: 1f.5
       bus info: pci@0000:00:1f.5
       version: 02
       width: 32 bits
       clock: 33MHz
       capabilities: pm bus_master cap_list
       configuration: driver=Intel ICH latency=0 module=snd_intel8x0

Case 2 - newer laptop - poor audio playback, but stays in sync with video and shows no ill effects in renderings:

$ sudo lshw -sanitize -class cpu -class multimedia
  *-cpu
       description: CPU
       product: Intel(R) Pentium(R) M processor 2.00GHz
       width: 32 bits
       clock: 133MHz
       capabilities: fpu fpu_exception wp vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic sep mtrr pge mca cmov pat clflush dts acpi mmx fxsr sse sse2 ss tm pbe nx up bts est tm2 cpufreq
  *-multimedia
       description: Multimedia audio controller
       product: 82801FB/FBM/FR/FW/FRW (ICH6 Family) AC'97 Audio Controller
       vendor: Intel Corporation
       physical id: 1e.2
       bus info: pci@0000:00:1e.2
       version: 03
       width: 32 bits
       clock: 33MHz
       capabilities: pm bus_master cap_list
       configuration: driver=Intel ICH latency=0 module=snd_intel8x0

Case 3 - newest system - great audio playback and perfect sync

$ sudo lshw -sanitize -class cpu -class multimedia
  *-cpu:0
       description: CPU
       product: Intel(R) Core(TM)2 CPU 6300 @ 1.86GHz
       width: 64 bits
       clock: 1066MHz
       capabilities: boot fpu fpu_exception wp vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic sep mtrr pge mca cmov pat pse36 clflush dts acpi mmx fxsr sse sse2 ss ht tm pbe nx x86-64 constant_tsc arch_perfmon pebs bts pni dtes64 monitor ds_cpl vmx est tm2 ssse3 cx16 xtpr pdcm lahf_lm tpr_shadow cpufreq
  *-multimedia
       description: Audio device
       product: 82801H (ICH8 Family) HD Audio Controller
       vendor: Intel Corporation
       physical id: 1b
       bus info: pci@0000:00:1b.0
       version: 02
       width: 64 bits
       clock: 33MHz
       capabilities: pm msi pciexpress bus_master cap_list
       configuration: driver=HDA Intel latency=0 module=snd_hda_intel

At least my hope is that if this problem doesn't get solved, my new laptop system may not have similar issues.