VLC: Subtitles Synchronization

Problem

Many videos come with a subtitles track, either embedded in the video container or as a separate file (typically a .srt file). Sometimes, these subtitles might be out of sync with the video.

Solution

Syncing up the subtitles to the video is easy in VLC. Use the keyboard shortcuts h and g to either delay or forward the subtitles over the video. Each keypress changes the delay by 50 milliseconds and VLC displays the current delay value as an overlay on the video.

There is another method, but surprisingly it does not work! Open the Tools → Track Synchronization dialog. Here, go to Synchronization → Advance of subtitles over video and set the delay to the amount you wish. This setting surprisingly has no effect! What works is only the keyboard shortcuts described above.

Tried with: VLC 1.1.3

VLC: Boosting Volume

Problem

When watching videos, sometimes you wish the volume were a bit higher than the maximum your computer can play. The problem is especially acute with videos whose audio is actually pretty low or with the underpowered speakers of most laptops. By default, VLC can already boost the volume upto 200%. But, what if you need your volume to be a big higher than that?

Solution

It is possible to squeeze out a bit more volume, at the expense of audio quality. In VLC, choose Tools → Effects and Filters and in its Audio Effects tab you can see the Graphic Equalizer. Here you can get some volume boost by choosing to Enable it and dragging up the Preamp slider. You can get a further boost by dragging up all the individual sliders at the various frequencies.

If you want much more volume than this, you need some new speakers!

Tried with: VLC 1.1.3

VLC: Audio-Video Synchronization

Sometimes the audio or video might lag behind the other during playback of a video file. Fixing this so that the audio and video are synchronized is pretty easy in VLC.

Play the video file in VLC. Choose Tools → Track Synchronization. VLC pops up an Adjustments and Effects window with the Synchronization tab open. Increase or decrease the Advance of audio over video value until you feel the audio and video are in sync. It takes a couple of seconds for new settings to take effect.

This is a per-session setting, as it should rightly be. So, it is lost when VLC is closed and reopened and needs to be set again if needed.

 

Tried with: VLC 1.1.7

Real Media Files and Real Alternative

VLC is the awesome-est media player which plays almost all the video formats out there. It is my default media player. Sadly it cannot be my only media player, since it has partial support for Real Media files (.rm or .rmvb). This means that some Real media files play fine, some have seeking problems and some just do not play at all.

One solution for this problem is to install the Real Alternative codec pack. It ships in two forms:

• Real Alternative Lite: Just the codec files.
• Real Alternative: The codec plus an old version of Media Player Classic to play the files.

I like to have as few files around as possible. So, I prefer to install Real Alternative Lite and use Windows Media Player to play the files.

VLC: Speedup the Video Playback

Watching videos of talks, interviews and lectures often feels slow and long. You can speedup the video playback in VLC player by clicking the Faster button on the right side of the window. The speed of the video playback is displayed in the statusbar at the bottom of the window. Each press increases the playback speed by 0.5x. I find a speed of 1.5x the most comfortable to watch.

If you need more fine-grained control, use the Faster (fine) and Slower (fine) options from the Playback menu. These change the playback speed by 0.1x.

More: Peteris Krumins blogs about other ways to speedup video playback by using AviSynth and Mplayer. I find the VLC method the most simple and straightforward.