Poor audio quality when playing videos at non-1x speed

adorabilis

Bug Report

This problem has been present in Safari for a long time and Orion has inherited it. Chrome and Firefox do not suffer from it. Additional reference:

Steps to reproduce:

Play any video (e.g. YouTube) at non-default speed (faster or slower than 1x).
Audio quality drops significantly.

Expected behavior:

It should sound better.

Orion/macOS:
Orion 0.99.107-beta (WebKit 613.1.3)
macOS Big Sur 11.6

pieterv

Additional reference:

https://bugs.webkit.org/show_bug.cgi?id=191053

s2e3440z

Steps to reproduce:

Go to any YouTube video
Adjust playback speed to 1.5x, or any setting faster than normal

Listen to the significant audio distortion/pitch shift

This issue is also present in any video, but easiest to demonstrate with YouTube.
Sadly, this may be a webkit issue since it's also observed with Safari.

Expected behavior:
On Firefox and Chrome, there is no pitch shift or distortion on the video.

Orion and macOS:
Orion 0.99.109.1.3-beta, macOS 12.1

petersm

Sorry, not adding anything other than we understand this is an ongoing WebKit not browser problem. But many of us would really love this if possible. It's the single reason some of us continue to use Firefox or Chromium

Paarth

petersm

100% agreed. Using brave for the past few years only because of this. Downloaded Orion in hope for a better audio handling but came back to brave.

panira

This is the only reason I can't switch to Orion. I'd love it if this issue was fixed (maybe by adding the option to change audio engines or something?)

GreyAsteroid

This is one of my major annoyances with Safari. If it helps, mpv implemented a pitch correction filter based on Chromium with the code here https://github.com/mpv-player/mpv/commit/785a2b126152d50ca43f6ce390b3a2114a469dad

Vlad

GreyAsteroid This is a good lead, but doing this inside webkit is a whole another matter. Any volunteers? 🙂

pass-it-on-please

Hey,
I've been checking up on this thread every week or so for the past year to see if it has been resolved, lol. I understand that it may be an inconvenience to fix, but Orion is unusable to me without proper audio.
Could you fix this issue, pretty please... I promise to start shilling your browser to everyone I know as soon as it's fixed.
I'll prolly also donate 🙃

Vlad

pass-it-on-please Worth noting there is an option to "sponsor this issue" now, if you really care about it.

coco-kazoo

This bug is one of the main reasons I can't use safari so it would be really awesome if a fix is possible. +1

Vlad I really care about it 🙂

bingo-bongo

Hey,
how is this still not fixed yet... it's been a year.
I'd love to use a more efficient browser on my mac, but without basic features (like working audio), I guess I'll just have to stick with Firefox.
Hopefully the next time I check there'll be some progress.
Thanks

Vlad

bingo-bongo

how is this still not fixed yet... it's been a year.

Curious to hear what you think the reason is?

JoeMahmoud

Steps to reproduce:
robotic high pitched voice when speeding up a video playback chrome and brave work perfect safari don't i found this on apple foram https://discussions.apple.com/thread/251787801 didn't help

Orion, OS version; hardware type:
latest version, m1 air

Guiscaranse

This bug also affects users who watch twitch and have the Low latency mode enabled. Is this being actively being worked on by the Orion team? (i.e is there a branch or something being worked on?). This is also my main reason to not fully switch to Orion as this has been appearing on many video players.

BenWedekind

Steps to reproduce:
<Include steps to reproduce the bug; Did you try using Compatibility mode? If applicable, does Safari behave in the same way?>
Safari has the same issue. Youtube videos on double speed are higher pitched and painful to listen to compared to Google Chrome.

Expected behavior:
<What you expected to happen?>
Videos should play fast without changing the quality of the sound, like in the Chrome Browser.

Orion, OS version; hardware type:
M1 Pro 14 inch. Newest version of Orion.

Image/Video:
<Copy/paste or drag and drop to upload images or videos (up to 20MB)>

tuesday

Duplicate of #149.