Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Installing VLC Media Player voids your speaker warranty

en.community.dell.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

41–50 of 224 posts

Re: Installing VLC Media Player voids your speaker warranty

#41

Post by jbk »

brador wrote: post #36
jbk wrote: post #15

As the main developer of VLC, we know about this story since a long time, and this is just Dell putting crap components on their machine and blaming others. Any discussion was impossible with them. So let me explain a bit... In this case, VLC just uses the Windows APIs (DirectSound), and sends signed integers of 16bits (s16) to the Windows Kernel. VLC allows amplification of the INPUT above the sound that was decoded…

How about detecting Dell Speakers and automatically setting the max volume to 100%, with a notification so the user can give an a-ok if they want to go higher. That way, at least users know and can make a decision. Similar to the Android warning if you set your volume too high that it could cause hearing damage. I'd prefer to be warned rather than surprised by this!

> How about detecting Dell Speakers

How would you do that?

And no, this is not specific to VLC.

Re: Installing VLC Media Player voids your speaker warranty

#42

Post by mertd »

brador wrote: post #36
jbk wrote: post #15

As the main developer of VLC, we know about this story since a long time, and this is just Dell putting crap components on their machine and blaming others. Any discussion was impossible with them. So let me explain a bit... In this case, VLC just uses the Windows APIs (DirectSound), and sends signed integers of 16bits (s16) to the Windows Kernel. VLC allows amplification of the INPUT above the sound that was decoded…

How about detecting Dell Speakers and automatically setting the max volume to 100%, with a notification so the user can give an a-ok if they want to go higher. That way, at least users know and can make a decision. Similar to the Android warning if you set your volume too high that it could cause hearing damage. I'd prefer to be warned rather than surprised by this!

That's impractical. VLC is just using the standard OS API to send some sound to speakers. Can you imagine every piece of software checking for every piece of esoteric hardware and having some special behavior?

Maybe Microsoft could regulate the output for junk speakers, but really, Dell is the one to blame here.

Re: Installing VLC Media Player voids your speaker warranty

#43

Post by thewarrior »

jbk wrote: post #15

As the main developer of VLC, we know about this story since a long time, and this is just Dell putting crap components on their machine and blaming others. Any discussion was impossible with them. So let me explain a bit... In this case, VLC just uses the Windows APIs (DirectSound), and sends signed integers of 16bits (s16) to the Windows Kernel. VLC allows amplification of the INPUT above the sound that was decoded…

I wasn't aware of this and now the speaker on my 3 year old Dell Studio doesn't work properly. :(

And here in India I hear people say that you shouldn't install VLC on laptops .. (even if its not a Dell laptop) !!

Re: Installing VLC Media Player voids your speaker warranty

#44

Post by tokenadult »

What is the current status of the vulnerability in VLC Media Player reported by Secunia? I see that there has been some online discussion of this in places outside Hacker News (which I searched the other day for more information about Secunia's vulnerability report).

http://secunia.com/advisories/52956/

http://secunia.com/blog/shooting-the-messenger-372

http://it.slashdot.org/story/13/07/10/1520245/vlc-and-secuni...

I have tried to update VLC Media Player on one machine on my home network, and the update fails, suggesting that the VLC Media Player installation on that computer may already be compromised by malware (which has previously been detected on that machine). What is the recommendation for current VLC Media Player users to make sure that they have a recently updated, reasonably safe installation of VLC Media Player that doesn't open up their computer to other vulnerabilities?

Re: Installing VLC Media Player voids your speaker warranty

#45

Post by ksec »

jbk wrote: post #15

As the main developer of VLC, we know about this story since a long time, and this is just Dell putting crap components on their machine and blaming others. Any discussion was impossible with them. So let me explain a bit... In this case, VLC just uses the Windows APIs (DirectSound), and sends signed integers of 16bits (s16) to the Windows Kernel. VLC allows amplification of the INPUT above the sound that was decoded…

Arh, I remember all sort of speaker problem ages ago. Never got around to figure what was wrong. I suppose this is it.

But does anyone have list of Manufacture that does provide speaker with BIOS Protection?. Does Apple do?

Re: Installing VLC Media Player voids your speaker warranty

#46

Post by iSnow »

Ma8ee wrote: post #18
guard-of-terra wrote: post #3

This is stupid. They are making speakers that can't withstand some cases of within-the-bounds PCM signal. If we had a normal society anywhere on earth they would be sued to the ground there.

Speakers are built to be able to withstand short peaks with high power to reflect the dynamic in the music or your movie. This is what is abused to be able to play loud sounds continuously. You could take the possibility to do that away, but then you would of course also remove some of the dynamics out of the music. But of course, the people that burn their speakers this way don't care about dynamics or evidently abo…

If it was a fundamental problem like you indicate, then every manufacturer would be hit by it, from Apple to Lenovo. It rather seems a problem of Dell using shoddy components and/or not issuing a driver that protects the speaker from the amp.

Re: Installing VLC Media Player voids your speaker warranty

#47

Post by ferongr »

jbk wrote: post #15

As the main developer of VLC, we know about this story since a long time, and this is just Dell putting crap components on their machine and blaming others. Any discussion was impossible with them. So let me explain a bit... In this case, VLC just uses the Windows APIs (DirectSound), and sends signed integers of 16bits (s16) to the Windows Kernel. VLC allows amplification of the INPUT above the sound that was decoded…

While I don't support Dell's decisions, digital (and analog) clipping can easily damage speakers driven at what is normally their maximum power they can handle, since the resulting clipped waveform carries a lot more energy than an unclipped one.

Re: Installing VLC Media Player voids your speaker warranty

#48

Post by anaphor »

jrockway wrote: post #39
brador wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How about detecting Dell Speakers and automatically setting the max volume to 100%, with a notification so the user can give an a-ok if they want to go higher. That way, at least users know and can make a decision. Similar to the Android warning if you set your volume too high that it could cause hearing damage. I'd prefer to be warned rather than surprised by this!

VLC doesn't do anything particularly interesting, though. There are plenty of CDs that already apply this filter to the music, meaning there's no way you can play that CD without damaging their speakers. The problem is simply that the Dell speakers are piles of shit.

Yeah, this sort of dynamic range compression is standard for the music industry (sadly).

Re: Installing VLC Media Player voids your speaker warranty

#49

Post by aestra »

philliphaydon wrote: post #21
Ma8ee wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Speakers are built to be able to withstand short peaks with high power to reflect the dynamic in the music or your movie. This is what is abused to be able to play loud sounds continuously. You could take the possibility to do that away, but then you would of course also remove some of the dynamics out of the music. But of course, the people that burn their speakers this way don't care about dynamics or evidently abo…

Not sure if you've ever owned a Dell laptop, but I'll never buy one again. On a couple of occasions I have tried to play DVD's on them and cannot hear people talking with the volume up. Put headphones on and its too loud. Dell speakers are junk.

Um in my experience all laptop speakers of all brands are like that.

Re: Installing VLC Media Player voids your speaker warranty

#50

Post by guard-of-terra »

Ma8ee wrote: post #18
guard-of-terra wrote: post #3

This is stupid. They are making speakers that can't withstand some cases of within-the-bounds PCM signal. If we had a normal society anywhere on earth they would be sued to the ground there.

Speakers are built to be able to withstand short peaks with high power to reflect the dynamic in the music or your movie. This is what is abused to be able to play loud sounds continuously. You could take the possibility to do that away, but then you would of course also remove some of the dynamics out of the music. But of course, the people that burn their speakers this way don't care about dynamics or evidently abo…

"Speakers are built to be able to withstand short peaks with high power"

And they should be built to be able to withstand any valid signal.

Post reply on HN