[Morien]

hi,

is it possible to add a feature to keep audio amplification on for ac3 but have it off for all other audio types in video containers?

i understand it is off by default because it makes the audio sound crap, however i'm finding that it has no negative effects on ac3, which due to their soft nature need it on more than other types.

thanks

[Loto_Bak]

ac3 audio is passed through directly to the digital output hardware.

to change the volume of multichannel audio xbmc would have to decompress, process 5.1-6.1 channels of audio, then re-encode to ac3 which, besides being a large processing load (which the little p3 733mhz processor likely couldnt handle on its own), causes quality loss due to decompression/recompression

perhaps on some next-gen hardware it might happen in software but it will never happen with xbmc.

solution : turn up your amp

[Morien]

i don't have an amp.
you can turn it up now, it's in settings>video>player (i think)>audio amplification
the reason one cannot keep it up is because it makes other audio types distort (eg. mp3), it doesn't seem to have any negative effects on ac3 though. so for ac3 i keep it up, but need to turn it down when i view something else, so i'm hoping for a feature to keep it amplified only for ac3 (or other selected formats).

[Loto_Bak]

perhaps pike and ring in on this one with some more detailed information on the function.

i believe this amplification is handled in hardware and causes clipping issues when set high.

regarding not having an amp, are you just listening to only 2 channels? if so, set your output mode to analog as xbmc should be able to adjust the volume after ac3 has been downsampled to 2 channels. if not how exactly are you able to listen to 5.1 without a 5.1 decoder+amp

[Morien]

thanks for your reply.
yep, 2.0 only at the current time. it's all set to analogue, but unless i'm missing something i can only turn the volume down on xbmc. i could set me tv very high and then use the volume control on xbmc but above a certain volume there is a lot of hiss