When playing any Silverlight example featuring video, the volume level is ridiculously loud (termendous clipping and will literally blow your head off)

If all volume levels are turned to min/zero in Windows (using the audio mixer), you can still hear the clipping / distortion even though the volume level improves somewhat.

 An interesting note is that the WAVE volume sliders do not affect Silverlight volume levels, only the master slider.  However all other audio sources (i.e. windows media player, and any other app) will respond to both the WAVE slider and master slider.

 Is there a known volume bug with Slverlight?  This should be addressed asap, as it will leave a very poor first impression for new comers.

 note:  This has been an issue for many Silverlight versions, however I never reported it. 

 - Silverlight RC2, WinXP Pro SP2 - WMP, Flash player, QuickTime, Games, etc all respond as expected in terms of audio volume output
 

more info:

1)
Volume level remains at the same level even when controlling the volume slider using any Silverlight video example. (the volume level is off the charts with tons of audio clipping).  Volume can be muted, so its either muted or full level, no in-between.

2)
The motherboard on this system is based on the Nforce4 chipset.  I will install the latest drivers soon to see if the problem is solved.  Despite this, you may want to address the issue as you will not want users to hear what I hear when this launches :)

3) Experience is the same in Firefox and IE.

Thank you, JD97a.

Yes, definitely check your drivers first. 

The videos that you're using in your Silverlight example, do those same ones play with normal sound levels and sound control in the other players that you listed in your first post?  Did you encode these videos yourself?  If so, using what?

Jonathan [MSFT]
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This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.

 I will update drivers soon, just wrapping some projects up and will report back in a few days.

 This issue concerns all videos played through silverlight. All videos from all demo sites, etc.  I also created a sample project with videos that have proper sound levels with the same problem.  I can assuredly say it is the Silverlight player/runtime that is causing this "max volume" issue only.

 I will follow up after driver updates soon. 

 note: It is not just the maximum volume level that a correctly running version of Silverlight would output (had the skin's slider been maxd).  It is the volume level if the Master / Wave channels in the Windows OS audio mixer were max'd (which they are not).

Thanks

 

Latest audio drivers (Nvidia Nforce4) installed and same problem.  

 Has anyone reported this problem yet?

JD97a,

You should update your audio driver as well as your video driver (the nForce4 is your video card).

To find your audio device, go to Start, right-click on My Computer and select Manage.

When the Computer Management window opens, click on Device Manager (left column).

Scroll down to Sound, video and game controllers and click on it to expand the list.  Find your audio device (like Sound Blaster, for example) and update the driver.

Another thing I'd like you to try is to put a Volume property in your <MediaElement>.  The Volume value can be between 0 and 1, with one being the loudest; the default is 0.5.  I know you're not looking for a workaround, but I'm curious to see if the Volume property has any effect in your environment.

Jonathan [MSFT]
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This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.

The nVidia nForce4 is a motherboard chipset with onboard audio support and not a Video Card. In the Device manager the Audio driver shows up as "NVIDIA(R) nForce(TM) Audio Codec Interface.
 

I too am having the same audio issues trying to play demo content in silverlight. I have not as of yet authored anything. 

I am also using on board audio on an nForce4 based motherboard. 

Thank you for the clarification, jc-561. 

Have either of you tried playing your Silverlight content on another computer?  Is your experience the same?  It may be a coincidence, but maybe there's an incompatibility with the nForce motherboard.  As it is, I can't replicate the problem.  Please let me know either way so I can give the product group some direction.  Thanks!

Jonathan [MSFT]
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This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.

I have been able to view the Demos on my Dell Laptop with out any playback issues although the installation process was rather painful. - The first demo I went to downloaded the 1.1 alpha version which did not work and the next demo could not install 1.0 but after uninstalling, rebooting & installing 1.0 all the 1.0 demos worked. The 1.1 Alpha downloaded the 1.1 installer again then none of the demos worked until i did another uninstall/reboot install process 

Thank you, again, jc-561.

Jonathan [MSFT]
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This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.

Yes the demo content and volume is a non-issue on other systems I have tested.  This includes various laptops.

I do not have another NForce4 based system to test from, however thanks to jc-561, it sounds like it is Nforce4 related.

NForce4 is a highly mainstream MB chipset so hopefully you can find the solution.  Keep in mind only Silverlight content is behaving this way.

 
When setting the volume between 0->1, this makes no difference.  0 will mute, but any positive value will result in full maximum system volume levels with tons of distortion.

Thank you, both.  I've brought this issue to the product group's attention so they may look into it further.

Jonathan [MSFT]
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This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.

Just to let you know that you might be on the right track with the nForce 4 idea.  I have a A8N-SLI Premium and have the same issue.

I installed on my Sony Viao with no problems.

I have the same audio problem. The problem was first reported in this thread from December 2006:
http://channel9.msdn.com/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=263776

Hmmm... interesting that this thread has 3,600+ views.

I'm not surprised there's been so many viewers of this thread. 

Just off hand without trying I know six people with this problem, myself included - all of us with NForce motherboards.  The few people with ATI chipsets are okay, as are those using add-on soundcards or USB headphones.  I just tried the release version and it too has the problem and this IS a blocking issue in my eyes.

I can't believe Microsoft would release something that has a bug that is so bad it will PREVENT adoption (even with volumes at minimum it's blaring out as loud as the speaker is set and you can't discern individual sounds at all).  Most people will give it a try and then just uninstall silverlight rather than experience the sound it produces when you go to a site that plays anything.

It works on my laptops fine though (intel audio on two and realtec on the other) but they are the only things I've seen it work on.  WHY doesn't it go through the normal mixer??

 (No, updating drivers doesn't help.)

Had this problem with the very first version of WPF/E

http://forums.microsoft.com/MSDN/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=1107289&SiteID=1

Later releases made it go away, but now its back again :(. 

likn:

Later releases made it go away, but now its back again :(. 

So much for unit testing, eh?

I'm also experiencing ridiculously loud volume levels no matter what any of the windows volume controls are set at. I have nForce4 on-board audio and experience this when viewing any video content, for example: http://boston.redsox.mlb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20070907&content_id=2195022&vkey=news_bos&fext=.jsp&c_id=bos

 I couldn't listen long enough to tell if there is actually sound being played, or if it's just noise since it's so absurdly loud.

Unfortunately Nforce is a very popular and highly sold chipset.  Furthermore, is it certain no other hardware is affected?

It is a shame the "release" was shipped with this bug.

We will definitely delay any Silverlight related projects until this is resolved.  This would be an embarassing and impossible bug to explain to a client that has been steered towards Silverlight.

To prevent this problem in the future, I think Microsoft should create a program whereby Microsoft officially certifies various audio chipsets and their associated drivers. Then they won't be surprised by hardware-related bugs that are only reported one year before release.

</sarcasm>

I have the same issue after installing silverlight 1.0 and have an Nvidia motherboard and audio.

Thanks, all, for the reports.  Keep them coming in.  The product group is looking into it.

Jonathan [MSFT]
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This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.

Got this too on nForce 2 (!) with default Audio from Mainboard , "NVIDIA(R) nForce(TM) Audio Codec Interface".

Cheers 

So... almost 24,000 views of this issue and still no patch...? Hmmm...

I registered to this forum just because of this problem. I'm also on an Nforce 2 motherboard using the onboard audio, and the audio plays like one loud, continuous "screech". It really makes running into any Silverlight object unpleasant. Hope this is fixed soon.

Just to further support the idea, I am also experiencing the problem and I am also on a nforce4 chipset. So far it seems that it is definitely related to the nforce4. And I also agree, it really should be looked at since the nforce4 is a VERY popular chipset for many motherboards...

Edit: Oh, also in addition to the sound, when playing a clip in full screen mode, it runs a little choppy. It does not do that with ANY other movie format, my computer is relatively ok when it comes to speed, I have a nVidia 8600 gt video card that is overclocked, I can play just about all new games without a problem, etc. etc. So I don't think it is just that my computer is too slow to play videos on full screen, lol.

It has been 2 months since I initially posted this bug (which has actually existed since the beginning).  

We really require an update and ETA at this point.  Your clients/users cannot move forward with Silverlight projects with a bug like this still existing.

Is the dev team aware and when will a patch be released that fixes this problem?  Please find these answers and relay them to us.

Thank you
 

Eh who gives a crap. They don't care, neither do I. There are plenty of other movie formats out there, yah, they might not be as fast as silverlight, but my internet connection is pretty good and I can stream pretty high resolution videos with very little buffering already, so it's no big deal to me, I'll just stick with the other formats, oh well.

 I guess I can't wait on this anymore - Flash Moviestar does everything I need already and with h.264 encoding looks really good

Perhaps Microsoft has discontinued support for Silverlight...??

I am not on the development team, but I do know they were notified of this bug (I'm the one that filed it).  For reasons I'm sure you can appreciate, I am unable discuss progress or give an ETA of a fix. 

One thing I noticed reading through the thread again is the absence of mention of Windows Vista.  Is anyone experiencing this problem using Windows Vista?

Jonathan [MSFT]
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This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.

I'm on Windows XP Pro, sorry I didn't mention that.

Asus A8N-E, nVidia 8600 GT OC'ed video card, hm, what else would be relevant, well, the motherboard has sound built in, Realtek ALC850, 8-channel CODEC...

XP Pro here.  Not able to test on Vista to confirm if the problem exists on that OS.

 I too am using XP Pro,  with the nVidia chipset motherboard.   This really makes me angry.  I go to MLB.COM and they are using Silverlight,  I can't even listen to the interviews with the players and coaches for the ALCS.  I am going to write to them and tell them to stop using silverlight and use windows media player or even quicktime,  but stop using this JUNK

    GO TRIBE 

I'll add myself to the list of people with problems on a nForce4 board.
While the 6600GT video card drivers are a bit out of date, the audio drivers should be. This is on a XP system.
I don't recall problems with the Beta or one of the RCs (I don't recall what I had installed prior to this release), but didn't play any Channel 9 videos with Silverlight until the final release, then again I know I didn't use it after I first got it so perhaps it was there for me as well and I passed it off as a Beta bug.

Wow, there's been 53,000 views of this topic now ... I wonder if this is affecting a lot of users?

Next time, Microsoft should build a self-updating capability into Silverlight so that interim fixes to major problems like this one can be deployed quickly. Hmm, maybe something like this: How Silverlight Update Works

I'm having the same experience, specifically audio is always distorted to an unrecognizable degree when playing video files. The same files always works in Windows Media Player.

 My config:

* Microsoft Silverlight,  Version: 1.0.20926.0
* Microsoft Windows XP Professional, Version 5.1.2600 Service Pack 2 Build 2600
* BIOS Version/Date Phoenix Technologies, LTD ASUS A8N-SLI Premium ACPI BIOS Revision 1009, 2005-10-21
* Hardware Abstraction Layer Version = "5.1.2600.2180 (xpsp_sp2_rtm.040803-2158)"

Audio Driver
* Name NVIDIA(R) nForce(TM) Audio
* PNP Device ID NVAX\NFORCE_VAD\4&212292CD&0&0000
* Driver c:\windows\system32\drivers\nvapu.sys (6.14.0462.0 built by: NVIDIA, 404,75 KB (414 464 bytes), 2005-04-13 13:34)

Audio Codecs
c:\windows\system32\iac25_32.ax Intel Corporation Indeo® audio software OK C:\WINDOWS\system32\IAC25_32.AX 2.05.53 195,00 KB (199 680 bytes) 2004-08-04 14:00
c:\windows\system32\imaadp32.acm Microsoft Corporation imaadp32.acm OK C:\WINDOWS\system32\IMAADP32.ACM 5.1.2600.2180 (xpsp_sp2_rtm.040803-2158) 16,00 KB (16 384 bytes) 2004-08-04 14:00
c:\windows\system32\l3codeca.acm Fraunhofer Institut Integrierte Schaltungen IIS Fraunhofer IIS MPEG Layer-3 Codec OK C:\WINDOWS\system32\L3CODECA.ACM 1, 9, 0, 0305 284,00 KB (290 816 bytes) 2004-08-04 14:00
c:\windows\system32\lhacm.acm Microsoft Corporation lhacm.acm OK C:\WINDOWS\system32\LHACM.ACM 4.4.3385 33,27 KB (34 064 bytes) 2007-03-17 16:57
c:\windows\system32\msadp32.acm Microsoft Corporation msadp32.acm OK C:\WINDOWS\system32\MSADP32.ACM 5.1.2600.2180 (xpsp_sp2_rtm.040803-2158) 14,50 KB (14 848 bytes) 2004-08-04 14:00
c:\windows\system32\msaud32.acm Microsoft Corporation Windows Media Audio Codec OK C:\WINDOWS\system32\MSAUD32.ACM 8.00.00.4487 288,00 KB (294 912 bytes) 2004-08-04 14:00
c:\windows\system32\msg711.acm Microsoft Corporation msg711.acm OK C:\WINDOWS\system32\MSG711.ACM 5.1.2600.0 (xpclient.010817-1148) 9,00 KB (9 216 bytes) 2004-08-04 14:00
c:\windows\system32\msg723.acm Microsoft Corporation msg723.acm OK C:\WINDOWS\system32\MSG723.ACM 4.4.3400 116,00 KB (118 784 bytes) 2005-12-17 21:01
c:\windows\system32\msgsm32.acm Microsoft Corporation msgsm32.acm OK C:\WINDOWS\system32\MSGSM32.ACM 5.1.2600.0 (xpclient.010817-1148) 19,50 KB (19 968 bytes) 2004-08-04 14:00
c:\windows\system32\sirenacm.dll Microsoft Corp. Messenger Audio Codec OK C:\WINDOWS\system32\SIRENACM.DLL 8.1.0178.00 49,86 KB (51 056 bytes) 2007-01-19 12:53
c:\windows\system32\sl_anet.acm Sipro Lab Telecom Inc. Sipro Lab Telecom Audio Codec OK C:\WINDOWS\system32\SL_ANET.ACM 3.02 84,00 KB (86 016 bytes) 2004-08-04 14:00
c:\windows\system32\tssoft32.acm DSP GROUP, INC. tssoft32.acm OK C:\WINDOWS\system32\TSSOFT32.ACM 1.01 8,00 KB (8 192 bytes) 2004-08-04 14:00

Jonathan-MSFT or any other staff,

 I actually do not understand why some information cannot return from the developers about this bug.  For example:

• Confirmation that the bug is identified and what priority is is receiving (emergency vs abandoning this group with an excuse of "un-supported configuration")
• An idea of approx. when an update with fix will be rolled out.  For example, "this year", "1st quarter next year", etc.

From the way the thread was initially answered (assuming nforce was a video card/video driver) I wonder if the scope of this problem is not full appreciated. I want to impress upon you how many people are actually affected.  NFORCE from Nvidia, is a very highly sold chipset (mobo chipset) found in HUGE segment of performance/gamer systems.  I don't have market share figures, but do a little research and you will see how bad this problem is.  Hundreds (or thousands) of motherboard brands use these chipsets.

From the lack of fixes, feedback, etc., I am getting a bad feeling Microsoft is viewing this problem as non-critical or worse, is considering not fixing this.  We are trying to bring services using Silverlight to market, and everything is on hold due to this. 

This issue was posted 3 months ago and has received over 60,000 views and climbing.  Break your "policy" and get some information from people in the know, fast.  Microsoft's credibility with Silverlight is being damage