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Customer: Dell Denies Speaker Repair Under Warranty, Blames VLC
An anonymous reader writes "VLC is incapable of increasing the actual power past 100%, all that is being done is the waveform is being modified to be louder within the allowed constraints. But, that didn't stop Dell from denying warranty service for speaker damage if the popular VLC Media Player is installed on a Dell laptop. Also we got a report that service was denied because KMPlayer was installed on a laptop. The warranty remains valid on the other parts of the laptop. VLC player developer [Jean-Baptiste Kempf] denied the issue with VLC and further claimed that the player cannot be used to damage speakers. How can I convince Dell to replace my laptop speaker which is still in warranty? Or class action is only my option?"
Option The First:
1. Buy Dell Laptop
2. Do first-use OS initialization, power down, remove HDD, store away in a safe place
3. Add new harddrive, install OS of choice
4. If at any time you have warranty service needs, swap original HDD back in
Option The Second:
1. Don't buy Dell
.
HSJ$$*&#^!#+++ATH0
NO CARRIER
I don't know what VLC player is, but any laptop that allows its speakers to be damage by software has a design flaw. Why is it that companies will try their damnedest to screw their customers over until publicly shamed with a bad-pr article like this?
I'm a good cook. I'm a fantastic eater. - Steven Brust
..it uses Windows system calls which then call the sound driver
If the damage was caused by software, it's clearly the fault of the driver
VLC is too far up the stack to cause anything abnormal
You don't need a lawyer for small claims, so not being one isn't a big problem. Filing the claim will also get the attention of some higher ups that the tech support tree will block you from.
You don't speak for this old timer. Stop bloody ruining every thread with your immature anti-beta posts.
Beta is not ruining my time on Slashdot, YOU ARE!
Send your feedback via the email they they have provided and leave it at that. If they do not listen to your feedback, then feel free to vote with your feet, but stop ruining the site for everybody else.
ps. Why hide behind anonymity?
Sorry, but the BBB will not help you. It's a front controlled by the businesses that they pretend to police.
The trouble is that the audio chipset hardware is by design meant to output arbitrary waveforms, including squarewaves, which is what VLC produces in the most extreme form of clipping.
A wave file can hold the very same signal.
Neither the user nor software is responsible for trying to figure out what waveforms are a problem on a system where the built in amp can destroy the built in speaker. It's the responsibility of the maker to limit the output of their own amp so that it doesn't cause damage. They put the amp in there in the first place. There's nothing about putting in a proper amp that in any way would affect portability.
And you forgot the most important piece of advice: Don't buy a Dell next time!
Well you are getting warmer.(Well warmer than any of the other posts I've read yet)
There are only two ways to destroy a speaker.
Overpowering (99%+ of cases), and Mechanical failure due to cone overextension.
Speakers are rated in Watts (RMS) and appear like a resistor that varies a bit with frequency.
If you take a 1W(RMS) speaker and match it to a 1W(RMS) amplifier, there is still a chance you can damage the speaker by overdriving it with a square wave which has 1.4 times the energy of a sine wave.
Thus because VLC has 200% volume function, you could take a peaklimited song and clip it from a 'sine' to a 'square' wave and damage the speaker. Unlikely, but possible and good engineer would take this into account when designing the system.
46137
That's a little bit short-sighted.
Without knowing the nature of the failure, it's impossible to say what the problem actually is. Were the loudspeakers destroyed through mechanical stress or thermal stress?
Limiting the power output of an amplifier for the purpose of preventing loudspeaker damage is not a trivial thing to do.
In terms of damage, loudspeakers don't care (within reason and obvious mechanical limits) about instantaneous power. They care about long-term heating.
If you just clip the signal, you generate an approximation of a squarewave (which loudspeakers hate): This reduces peak power (which isn't normally a problem), and increases average power (which is always a problem), and reduces cooling, AND it sounds terrible (though some listeners seem to not care). Clipping, therefore, at any stage -- including within software (ala VLC), or even during the recording process -- is a problem.
If you add a simple limiter, you've got the same problems all over again, although with less harmonic distortion: Peak power goes down, but average power stays high. Voice coils cook.
If you add a complicated multiband limiter that understands heating, you might have a shot at solving it, but you're into real money in engineering dollars and DSP parts....over some $.50 laptop speakers.
That all said, companies have been selling and folks have been buying integrated audio systems for well over half a decade. If this is 1949 and I crank up my RCA tube set so I can listen to music in the garden and cook the loudspeaker, that's my fault -- not RCA's fault. The best I can hope is that RCA is willing to sell me a replacement speaker at a reasonable price.
Same with a 1980s Fisher "rack system," or a wall full of modern Krell and Martin Logan gear. Or any random boombox. And, I dare say, a laptop.
It is traditionally the job of the listener to ensure that an audio system is performing within its limitations, and not the job of the audio system to protect itself from the listener.
If I crank VLC up to 120 or 200% or whatever the maximum is, and it starts clipping samples and generating square waves, and I turn the other volume controls up so I can hear that distorted drone over the drone of my hot tub, and something breaks...gosh, I guess I'm going to say that it was my own fault for not hearing the plain and obvious distortion that was occurring, and you know, just turn things down. Just as with any other audio system, big or small.
Back to legal stuff: The Magnusson-Moss Warranty Act does not protect consumers from their own stupidity. If I drop my Jeep down a 4-foot embankment and break a front control arm, that's my own dumb fault -- it's certainly not the manufacturer's fault for failing to ensure that I would be unable to perform such maneuvers in MY Jeep (yes, emphasis: If I owned a Jeep, it would be MINE).
HOWEVER, what MMWA does do is ensure that if the manufacturer suspects that a failure is due to end-user modification, that the the onus is on the manufacturer to prove that this is the case. I can be rock-crawling in my Jeep with its trick aftermarket suspension, and if the engine dies from a broken pushrod, it's the manufacturer's responsibility to prove that it's either not a warranted fault OR that my modifications caused the pushrod to break.
Likewise, the onus is on Dell to prove that some software (such as VLC) caused the failure...or that the speakers aren't warranted to begin with due to signs of abuse. Dismissing a warranty claim out-of-hand because of the software installed on a computer, or the shocks on a Jeep (even IF it might be the case that the software did in fact cause the problem, as VLC might be capable of doing) is illegal in all 50 states.
Kid-proof tablet..