Fire TV Stick: MXPlayer doesn't work well; recommend VLC PLayer (with an audio sync fix)

[DVoorhees1957]

After some additional research and very useful discussion with @GerryDazoo, I've determined that MXPlayer simply has unresolvable problems when trying to use it as the media player on a Fire TV Stick. For details, see discussion #259. So I went back to trying to use VLC Player, which I had initially abandoned because of a very painful audio lag relative to the video on almost everything I watched.

Luckily, there's a fix for the latter. Here is the information @GerryDazoo provided about how to access the "audio delay" setting in VLC (I think you have to be connected to Slinger and watching a video stream first):

Click in the player window; this will display the pause button and some other controls
Click on the icon in the lower left hand corner (who knows what it stands for)
Click on the Audio drop-down
Click on Audio Delay

In my specific case, I had to set the audio delay to "-350ms" (minus 350 ms); that gets the lip movement and audio pretty much in sync, at least for the show I was testing with. I'll have to see if that delay needs to be adjusted for each program separately - hopefully not. There's a way to save the setting to be used for all shows, not just the current one.

[socelillyhammer]

its like im watching an asian movie dubbed in english. Thank you for this. looking forward to testing this out. the delay is painful.

[tom76017]

My Firestick 4K works great with MXPlayer. No audio delays. VLC is terrible with huge audio delays. Strange that we get differing results. And, the original Slingplayer also works well, although I prefer Slinger and my Network IP Remote connected directly to my TiVo.

[DVoorhees1957]

Ah, the About info in the MXPlayer app is what you were referencing - mine shows the same thing. So the only "obvious" difference between your config and mine (not sure about Gerry's) is that you're running Slinger on top of Linux, rather than Windows 7 (Python 3.8.10). Maybe there's some difference in the Python3 implementation, or underlying network protocols, between Linux and Win7...?

[socelillyhammer]

@tom76017 what? the original slingplayer? how? are you using it with the SB 500?

[GerryDazoo]

I have slinger running on windows and Linux and I see the same results. I run the exe and Python and see the same results. So sorry, no cigar. I'm voting for a bug in MXPlayer.

[GerryDazoo]

Lilly. Slingbox Player 5.0.0.83. Is working for me. It only works for playing content on the LAN, no place shifting.

[robosmith]

I ONLY see problems with MxPlayer (Fire TV stick from Pro HD with Slinger on Pi 4) when it repeatedly drops the stream (proly due to Internet congestion over 3000mi link) and I try to reconnect. For some unknown reason, it usually will not reconnect until 2-4 tries later. I've seen as many as 8 orphaned streams. I wonder if it's dropping the streams due to buffer overrun.

VLC usually reconnects in less than 30 seconds with ONE try. I use the -250ms audio delay setting.

Otherwise, with low net congestion, MxPlayer is SOLID and better pic than VLC or Slingplayer was.