Closed Bug 1115967 Opened 10 years ago Closed 2 years ago

HTML5 player doesnt play bass sounds (forced on Youtube)

Categories

(Core :: Audio/Video: Playback, defect, P3)

40 Branch
x86_64
Windows 7
defect

Tracking

()

RESOLVED FIXED
mozilla43

People

(Reporter: roman.rellum, Unassigned)

References

Details

(Whiteboard: [platform-rel-Youtube])

User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; WOW64; rv:37.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/37.0
Build ID: 20141227030218

Steps to reproduce:

I'm expenriencing this issue for a while but recently I just got enough of it and tried to find out the source.

Currently I have Nightly 37, 32b. HTML player (which is forced in Youtube and cannot be disabled anymore for some reason) doesnt play bass sounds on any video.

I tried few videos IE where youtube still plays via flash player and it works as intended.

Listen ppl, I appreaciate your work and I love Firefox. Im able to overlook many things, but issues like this drives me nuts and are quite enough to simply move on to other platform. This been issue for months, and now Idinf out that I can't even disable HTML5 for youtube? Why?
>doesnt play bass sounds on any video
you get sound but the the bass part of the audio is missing or do you mean something different ?

>This been issue for months
it seems that this is only an issue for you

>and now Idinf out that I can't even disable HTML5 for youtube? Why?
You have to ask youtube why they don't allow it
Component: Untriaged → Video/Audio
Product: Firefox → Core
>You have to ask youtube why they don't allow it
And by that you mean Google, which is quite impossible to contact from my region.

I know this might not be fault of Firefox if Google force HTML5 in Youtube when FF is detected. But its so damn frustrating. I don't need to fix the bug or whatever is causing this issue with HTML5 player, I just want to disable it and use Flash player instead.

I tried everything. Newest drivers for X-Fi Titatnium, reinstalled OS, tried different versions of Firefox.
(In reply to Roman Müller from comment #2)
> >You have to ask youtube why they don't allow it
> And by that you mean Google, which is quite impossible to contact from my
> region.
> 
> I know this might not be fault of Firefox if Google force HTML5 in Youtube
> when FF is detected. But its so damn frustrating. I don't need to fix the
> bug or whatever is causing this issue with HTML5 player, I just want to
> disable it and use Flash player instead.
> 
> I tried everything. Newest drivers for X-Fi Titatnium, reinstalled OS, tried
> different versions of Firefox.

On Firefox 35, going to https://www.youtube.com/html5 lets me disable it.

On Firefox 37, that doesn't work. You can still disable MSE in 37 though, and that might help convince Google to let you disable it on that page? I'm not sure, but it's worth a shot.


If you want us to help fix it though (which really, we would prefer!)... can you provide an example video where the difference is easily audible for you?
Flags: needinfo?(roman.rellum)
(In reply to :Gijs Kruitbosch from comment #3)
> If you want us to help fix it though (which really, we would prefer!)... can
> you provide an example video where the difference is easily audible for you?

I dont hear bass sounds in any youtube videos using Firefox and its html5 player.

But hey, you want an example.. here it is:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8mSskFS0vn4

No bass in Firefox. Using IE I can clearly hear them... and its not just hearing them. U can feel it then when u place hand in front of subwoofer.
Flags: needinfo?(roman.rellum)
(In reply to :Gijs Kruitbosch from comment #3)
> (In reply to Roman Müller from comment #2)
> On Firefox 37, that doesn't work. You can still disable MSE in 37 though,
> and that might help convince Google to let you disable it on that page? I'm
> not sure, but it's worth a shot.
Thx for the advice. I tried to set media.mediasource.enabled to false but I still cant disable html5 on youtube. Is that what u meant?
Looks like this is related to https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=979705


So the issue here is that the LFE channel doesnt play? Audio has been completely broken for over a year in multichannel configurations and no one at Mozilla cares.

At this rate I doubt multichannel is ever going to get fixed in Firefox or at least it will take years, seems like no one at Mozilla cares enough, if you can change browsers it would be wise.
LFE channel not functioning? on virtually all applications it doesn't anyway, its the responsibility of the drivers to handle the downmix/redirection if not the amplifier itself.

That being said though, customisable crossmixing is something I'll be looking at when I eventually fix the surround sound issue (#979705), and it could be possible that a bad mask/init is at fault too.
I was hoping I wasn't the only one experiencing this.

I can hear bass with IE even when switching to HTML5 within YouTube so this issue appears to be related to Firefox, not YouTube.

Going to https://www.youtube.com/html5 and choosing the default player in Firefox works as expected and I hear bass as it's using Adobe Flash. When switching to html5, the sound quality deteriorates and no bass is heard.

With IE 11, using the default player (Flash), bass is heard as expected. When switching to HTML5, I still hear bass although not as strongly.
Firefox's current audio system is definitely quite broken for non-stereo setups, even noticeable just by playing sample sounds from wikipedia. But I have been pulling apart the code to get towards fixing it all.

I will note though, that a temporary (or overall permanent really) workaround can be to go to your audio devices configuration and turn on what's commonly called 'bass redirection', assuming you can do so with your device, though all creative soundcards and I think most realtech codecs can. The speakers themselves tend to do it already (hence bass still slightly works), but doing it in the device itself tends to yield better results.
I'm currently working on this bug, more specifically removing the legacy stereo mixer and replacing it with a full crossmixer (any no. channels in to any no. channels out).

extra note; yes it's confirmed.
Assignee: nobody → Paul.Hancock.17041993
Status: UNCONFIRMED → ASSIGNED
Ever confirmed: true
The one funny thing about this issue is that virtually all windows applications are dead in the remaining channels, they only fill L and R and rely on the driver/device/amp to do things like bass redirection. Games and multi-channel media are an exception.

Roman, do you have any media applications that have the LFE functioning? so I can test its audio output.
Flags: needinfo?(roman.rellum)
I don't know what LFE functioning means. How do I find out?
Flags: needinfo?(roman.rellum)
LFE is the bass channel, aka the subwoofer.
Yes... basically everything except build-in Firefox HTML5 player. Internet Explorer works fine, games and my media and music player (AimPlayer) works fine aswell. Even flash videos in Firefox played through Flash Player works fine.

That's why I complained that HTML5 player is forced in Youtube. Switching to Flash Player would do the job for me, even tho it would be only workaround.
Ok, the reason why AimPlayer has the bass (and surround) is because its one of the very few applications that uses surround crossmixing by default. If you go to its settings under Playback > Transform Options and uncheck the 'Allow channels mixing' it will turn off the crossmix and the result should be identical to what Firefox and other (unmodified/uncustomised) media applications output, plain stereo.

Full surround support is something we still intend to add to firefox, however the code behind it will require a lot of re-designing and re-writing, which also means a lot of testing. So it'll be some time before the full set is there. We also need to fully determine how we can make it easily customisable for the large range of setups out there.

That being said, can you turn on the bass redirection? It's been a while since I've touched X-Fi but I think I remember the option being under the speaker settings in the creative control panel. The other option might be to set all the speakers to not be full-range, which forces filtering on them, or even make them full-range so the amp can do its own filtering (assuming it has any).
Actually, to slightly correct the last comment, the speakers likely have to be set to not be full-range for bass redirection to work. I know this is the case with my Zx (SoundBlaster Recon3D and Z series).
Yea I know what u mean... I used creative drives ages ago and I had terrible experience with it so kinda forgot about this possibility. But I gave it a shot and they improved it a lot. And ye, enabling bass redirection works. Thx for remembering me :)
Hello,
i have posted on various places the same issue and never got any helpful answer..
I am not using creative sound. But Asus Xonar DG and my bass redirection is always on i always used that feature.
HTML5 simply does not provide any sound beside front left and right.
Meaning no bass, no center or rear speakers sound..

And no, bass redirection doesn't work either..

Thankfully there is addon for firefox to force flash back into youtube...
But we all know that just temporary workaround which with days passing it will cease to work...
P.S
What i meant to say that upmix is clearly not doing anything..

Yes in app of sound card i can switch to stereo as source and have sound upmixed.. but thats not an option..
Because all 5.1 sound will not work as 5.1 then.. and switching back and forth just to watch browser music is not an option ..

http://imgur.com/IcGsRoq
while you have enabled bass redirection, have you also set the speakers to not be full-range? That tends to be a requirement for bass redirection to work.
No they are not full range. Option is not enabled for neither speaker set.
Thing is that bass redirection works in everything except in html5.
And not just that as i said only front left and right are working (giving any sound)
Others are dead.
I am sorry but this is just not acceptable. In my home we listen to youtube music all day long. And not heaving upmix on full 5.1 system is just not OK.

At this moment i just cannot support any hate against flash.
Users should not suffer for consequences of same..
So your soundcard doesn't have any bass redirection at all? virtually all applications will only feed a stereo signal unless they explicitly play surround or have an internal crossmixer, so I'm not sure how only HTML5 would be having that problem...

That being said I do have working prototype code in FF43, just that I'm re-writing and re-designing a lot of how FF's audio stream handles streams in the process, from front-end to back-end. So it will still be some time until its fully up to scratch.
Target Milestone: --- → mozilla43
Version: 37 Branch → 40 Branch
Its not just about bass redirection, none of side speakers not even center speaker produce any sound what so ever.

It was over the years app responsibility to send upmix to 5.1 and i have yet to see one that doesnt do that. Except now html5.
I do not know where specifically lies the problem, but i do not have issues with stereo sounds of any type on any app until html5.It was always being upmixed into my 5.1

http://imgur.com/gluosol
Visual presentation of Asus Software its a no brainer really.
Source of sound chosen is 6speakers. which is 5.1 As i said earlier i can switch to 2speakers but that defeats everything as there is no 5.1 then just stereo on all channels from all sources.

html5 is one and only that i have ever noticed that it doesnt upmix..

I do not know what else i can say to help..
I have found this about adobe:
pparently, Adobe thinks that upmixing flash sound to match the system speaker configuration is the right way to go (ignoring the horrible results in the audio quality, like in the bass balancement and in the center speaker being too loud), and they are not going to change this behavior soon.

I do not care about quality person speaks i never noticed that. All sounds are stereo on youtube either-way.I just have no sound at all except front left and right.

I do not know if it helps you in any way..
P.S
I spent days and days on google search and even google chrome has same issue.
Some smartpants people are saying :"switch to stereo in sound mixer if you want upmix"
Which is way too arrogantly stupid to be answer.

User cannot switch from stereo to 5.1 every time he activates different application within OS. That's ridiculous .. And not to mention bad side-effects of doing that, app that was assigned to stereo when switching to 5.1 will simply hang or crash all together.

Anyway .. we are back to square one.. flash is doing its job for the moment with stereo upmix and has done it for decades .. it cannot be just erased unless alternative with same function is provided..

I hope this provided some kind of help.. 
If i sounded offensive i apologize it wasnt my intention..
(In reply to Paul17041993 from comment #10)
> I'm currently working on this bug, more specifically removing the legacy
> stereo mixer and replacing it with a full crossmixer (any no. channels in to
> any no. channels out).

Are you still working on it?
Still working on it, got to do a lot of documentation in the process due to the complexity.
I have went until about:config and disabled settings for HTML5 to force YouTube to play with Flash. I didn't want to download a add-on to force this change.
(In reply to Paul17041993 from comment #28)
> Still working on it, got to do a lot of documentation in the process due to
> the complexity.

Ping me on irc if you need anything from me.
Component: Audio/Video → Audio/Video: Playback
Is this the same bug as this one here?
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1151374#c3

And will it be fixed in Firefox 43?

More than 2 channel sound works in virtually every browser but firefox. It is a shame :-(
Basically the majority of FF's audio pipeline needs a complete re-write from scratch, the annoying thing about that though is it takes time and I keep ending up distracted...
platform-rel: --- → ?
Whiteboard: [platform-rel-Youtube]
Status: ASSIGNED → RESOLVED
Closed: 8 years ago
Resolution: --- → DUPLICATE
Depends on: 1248861
(In reply to Anthony Jones (:kentuckyfriedtakahe, :k17e) from comment #33)
> 
> *** This bug has been marked as a duplicate of bug 1151374 ***

This is not technically a duplicate as it's an optional mixing feature, that relied on multi-channel being fixed first.

Do we have mixing in the new system?
Flags: needinfo?(ajones)
(In reply to Paul17041993 from comment #34)
> (In reply to Anthony Jones (:kentuckyfriedtakahe, :k17e) from comment #33)
> > 
> > *** This bug has been marked as a duplicate of bug 1151374 ***
> 
> This is not technically a duplicate as it's an optional mixing feature, that
> relied on multi-channel being fixed first.

The bug description isn't clear and I have a lot of bugs to go through quickly. Feel free to fix the bug description to better describe the issue.

> Do we have mixing in the new system?

We have downmixing.
Status: RESOLVED → REOPENED
Flags: needinfo?(ajones)
Resolution: DUPLICATE → ---
> We have downmixing.

But up-mixing? I assume not unless it was only recently pushed...
Description; FF lacks the ability/option to automatically mix non-LFE sources to an LFE channel when provided by the system. Additionally an option to mix for LFE sources would also be desired.

One issue however is how do we control the mixing volume, a .5 addition of each non-LFE channel is the most balanced but may be either rich or poor for some users. A LFE mix volume option in about:preferences#content should suffice.
(In reply to Paul17041993 from comment #37)
> A LFE mix volume option in about:preferences#content should suffice.

That sounds like the system's responsibility to me, or that of an add-on.
(In reply to Anthony Jones (:kentuckyfriedtakahe, :k17e) from comment #38)
> That sounds like the system's responsibility to me, or that of an add-on.

Most of the time it should be, but not every user has that convenience, so many applications provide their own.
platform-rel: ? → ---

The bug assignee didn't login in Bugzilla in the last 7 months, so the assignee is being reset.

Assignee: Paul.Hancock.17041993 → nobody

It isn't clear to me that there is anything to fix anymore here, we've reworked all this a long time ago.

Let us know if some setup still have issues, thanks!

Status: REOPENED → RESOLVED
Closed: 8 years ago2 years ago
Resolution: --- → FIXED
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