[bklopfer]

Hi,

I'm running Debian 7.0 on a 32-bit netbook. There is a built-in soundcard (driver: snd-hda-intel) and a USB SB X-Fi 5.1 card. I do NOT use PulseAudio, just ALSA. Through asound.conf/.asoundrc, this card properly supports 5.1 through mplayer/VLC, and properly upmixes stereo to front+rear+subwoofer (with a software low-pass filter). I have two pcm plugs defined in my asoundrc: "pcm.!surround51" is for 5.1 output and "pcm.!default" for upmixing. So, by default, stereo from applications will upmix properly, and to play 5.1 movies I just tell mplayer/VLC to use the surround51 device.

Now comes the fun part. With XBMC, I can get 5.1 to work only if I *remove* the "pcm.!default" lines from my .asoundrc (or rename it to "pcm.!something_else"). Then, with

Code:

<audiodevice>ALSA:surround51</audiodevice>

in my guisettings.xml file, 5.1 vobs work properly. However, when I try to play music (stereo) files, the sound comes from my netbook's internal sound card (since this is the default device). Now, when I set the upmix to "pcm.!default", mplayer/VLC/etc. are all happy, but XBMC plays everything--stereo and 5.1--through the netbook's internal card. Upon inspection, the guisettings.xml gets automatically changed to use "ALSA:@:CARD=Intel,DEV=0" as the audio device. Any words of wisdom?

Having XBMC upmix stereo to 5.1 isn't good since there's no hardware crossover, so the subwoofer gets the full range (my subwoofer is plugged directly to an amp with no crossover at all).

I've looked around a bit but haven't found a solution. Other than this issue, I've been really impressed with XBMC--really snazzy program, and it was even easy to set up my IR remote (!).

I've put some helpful debugging files here--please let me know if any more would be useful: http://koob11.stanford.edu/~bklopfer/xbmc_debug/

Thanks, and happy New Year!

[bklopfer]

So it seems that, for whatever reason, XBMC is unable to use my quirky audio upmix+crossover (LADSPA) setup. I can set the 5.1 device (which just uses dmix+softvol) as the pcm.!default device and it works fine (again, stereo doesn't get properly upmixed).

However, as soon as I set my upmix+crossover device as pcm.!default, I get

Code:

INFO: CAESinkALSA - ALSA: pcm_params.c:2162:(snd1_pcm_hw_refine_slave) Slave PCM not usable
INFO: CAESinkALSA - No playback configurations available for device "default"

My upmix+crossover device works fine with speaker-test (that is, front speakers are played through the front+rear+sub [low pass filtered]). Is XBMC unable to use complicated ALSA setups, or am I missing something? My problem is similar to http://openelec.tv/forum/68-audio/58601-...o-playback , but nothing there has helped much...