[cjacoby78]

Hi all,

I wonder if this is a bug or a configuration problem.

I have a 7.1 HDMI receiver connected to a Mac Mini over HDMI. I noticed that movies with 2.0 Stereo MPEG 2 (MP2) sound only play over my receiver if I specifically select a 2.0 speaker setup. If I choose a 5.1 or 7.1 setup - I get no sound, although my receiver show PCM 48KHz.

Any ideas?

Thanks,
Cheers,
CJ

[Kib]

Moved to correct subforum.

[cjacoby78]

Moved to correct subforum.

Why was this thread moved to IOS support? Would be better in Mac OS X, wouldn't it?

I didn't post it there initially because this might be a general problem - having to tell XBMC my speaker configuration implies that it does something to the stream if the speaker configuration doesn't match the number of audio streams - this might not be necessary as the receiver should take care of this.

One thing I might try tonight is to fiddle with advancedsettings.xml, which has an audio option for Frodo to force direct sound transmission:
<forceDirectSound>1</forceDirectSound>.

Cheers,
CJ

---

One thing I might try tonight is to fiddle with advancedsettings.xml, which has an audio option for Frodo to force direct sound transmission:
<forceDirectSound>1</forceDirectSound>.

Forget this - this seems to be Windows specific ...

[Memphiz]

Try setting speakersetup to 7.1 (8 channels) in audio midi setup and 7.1 in XBMC. Then tick "LPCM capable receiver". Though i doubt this will work - it is worth a try. This is dedicated to OSX for sure because OSX has its own implementation of AudioEngine based on Apples CoreAudio. (so i moved it to macosx section now where it fits best).

[Kib]

Guys i simply misclicked. Obviously this should have been in the Mac OSX section.

[cjacoby78]

Try setting speakersetup to 7.1 (8 channels) in audio midi setup and 7.1 in XBMC.

What you suggest is not possible on a Mac Mini with HDMI output - the Audio Midi Setup only supports 2 channel audio over HDMI. Apparently from what I have read on other forums, setting the HDMI to 48 KHz, Stereo with 16 or 24 bit sounds, makes the Mac passtrough anything untouched.

However I prefer to force the output device to HDMI in XBMC and do not use default, as the Mac's Default (from the Audio Midi Setup) tends to hop back to the Built-in output, once I switch my receiver off.

Thus indeed if I choose a 2.0 speaker configuration in XBMC with HDMI output for both "Audio output" and "Audio output device" everything works - I get 2 channel MP2 sound and 5.1 channel Dolby Digital or 5.1 DTS sound - everything gets passed through my receiver untouched. However if I choose a 5.1 speaker configuration in XBMC, only 5.1 sources seem to get through - at least a 2.0 MP2 doesn't!!!

With that it mind, the speaker configuration doesn't make much sense on a Mac with HDMI and should always be on 2.0!

[Memphiz]

turn off lpcm in that case. And fyi 7.1 is not possible with your setup (since audio midi setup has to be able to be set to 8channels in that case). I really wonder why your macminionly allows 2 channels via hdmi. Must be a "feature" in conjunction with your receiver - i have a macmini 2012 latest and can set it to 8 channels without a problem...

[cjacoby78]

Possible...

My receiver is an Onkyo from 2007 (first generation for HD Audio) and my Mac Mini is the first generation with an HDMI (2010 I guess). I have read from other people having that problem that multi-channel options are greyed out.

However as I said with a 2.0 setup, I now get 2.0 and 5.1 sound ... And my guess is that I would even get 7.1 as the stream is passed through untouched.

Thanks!

[Memphiz]

Nope 7.1 can't be passed through via 2.0 channels (limit for 2 channels is 5.1) - also 7.1 can't be passed through on osx (limitation of the operating system). Only solution for osx is LPCM which decodes the 7.1 encoded signal and passes it as multichannel PCM 8 channels (which is not available on your macmini somehow).

[cjacoby78]

Good to know!

All this stuff really doesn't come out of the box on OSX ... And as I have only a 5.1 setup, I don't mind - although my receiver supports 7.1.

Thanx!

[Jay1220]

So OP just to refrain again, Im in a similar situation got and old Onkyo 7.1 receiver hooked up via optical to my iMac where im running XBMC....what should my audio settings be?

[cjacoby78]

Not entirely sure as my problem was related to HDMI ...

To my knowledge you can only have 5.1 over an optical link. So if you choose your optical out in XBMC and tell it that you have an AC3/DTS capable receiver and uncheck LPCM capable, you should get 5.1 with the 5.1 speaker settings. You probably should also get 5.1 with the 2.0 settings. You may run into problems with 2.0 MPEG2 sound with a 5.1 settings (as I did over HDMI) - in my case the optimal settings is 2.0 with the AC3/DTS options checked and LPCM unchecked - that way XBMC hands the stream over to my receiver untouched, up to 5.1 (I never tried 7.1 source material though).

Maybe someone else knows better ...

[Memphiz]

This is a 100% true post. Grats