After switching to Ubuntu 12.04 I use Vlc only with ALSA, so this bug is not affecting me any more. Thus, I changed the status to Invalid.
** Changed in: pulseaudio (Ubuntu) Status: Confirmed => Invalid -- You received this bug notification because you are a member of Desktop Packages, which is subscribed to pulseaudio in Ubuntu. https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/646061 Title: Crackling sound and higher CPU usage in VLC player using pulseaudio Status in “pulseaudio” package in Ubuntu: Invalid Bug description: Binary package hint: pulseaudio My systems run Ubuntu 10.04 64 Bit and 32 Bit (all clean install) and the problem is the same on both the laptop and the desktop computers. Crackling sound together with higher CPU usage occurs when playing some songs (mp3) or video (avi) in VLC player using pulseaudio plugin output. With some songs or videos crackling is more disturbing than with others, but I didn't find any pattern - anyway it seems that the sound is never totally clear. If output is changed to alsa, VLC uses alsa pulseaudio plugin and crackling is gone, but after some time audio automatically gets disabled and I need to disable sound track and than re-enable it again via VLC "Audio->Audio Track" menu (sometimes it doesn't help). I recently find a workaround which always works for both my computers - When I delete "~/.pulse" folder (this needs to be done after each restart of the computer) and then run VLC crackling is gone no matter which output I set (ALSA/Pulseaudio) and also audio track is not automatically disabled after some time. To manage notifications about this bug go to: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/pulseaudio/+bug/646061/+subscriptions -- Mailing list: https://launchpad.net/~desktop-packages Post to : desktop-packages@lists.launchpad.net Unsubscribe : https://launchpad.net/~desktop-packages More help : https://help.launchpad.net/ListHelp