Hi All
My Setup
PC
Intel® Core™ i3-2120 CPU @ 3.30GHz
Gigabyte H61M-S2PV
Nvidia GTX 650 - Latest Drivers GeForce R331 28/10/2013
8 Gb Ram
Windows 7 Pro 64 Bit
TV/AVR
LG BH7420P/LG 55LM760T
It started off quite sedately, I have a WD Live Hub use for all media purposes, but I decided to buy an HDMI cable and have a play. I have not lost ? 2 weeks messing about with XBMC in one way or another.
EDID Issues
I lost a lot of time messing with this, and obviously nothing to do with XBMC, and in fact I think I was just trying to play Mkv files from my collection via VLC or Media Player, but the main sticking point was only seeing 2 channels, and I read up about how you needed 8 to display in the sound settings to get HD audio. This was from either the XBMC wiki, or Nvidia forums and the likes. After messing with EDID reading apps, and trying to make my own, I came across a post that turned it all on its head, it basically said it CAN say only 2 Channels, this actually is Windows telling you the max channels it can pass uncompressed LPCM audio over. http://http://www.avsforum.com/t/1227161...5xxxs/2880 (I know this is for ATI cards, but its much the same scenario). So even if it does only say 2 Channels if like mine it says DTS/Dolby Digitial in the lower box, then you will get DTS in 5.1 via any passthrough method your media player
has.
This works fine for 5.1 Channels, even though you can read various forums that tell you different. http://wiki.xbmc.org/index.php?title=Win...udioEngine
IMPORTANT - For HD audio to work then Max Number of Channels must be reported as 8 if anything other than 8 is reported then HD audio will not work even if DTS-HD and TrueHD are listed in the Encoded Formats box. is not actually true.
This was after bookmarking 10's of pages on how to fix, so anyway, I started reading up on VLC/Media player, I then started messing with sound settings and eventually got my AVR to display DTS/AC3 and movies were playing fine via HDMI in a click in the PC Folder and then the file plays in VLC sort of way.
XBMC Audio
Now what I also lost a lot of time with was HDMI out audio for XBMC. The main part was having to set it up via my TV and being able to read web pages at the same time. This may sound stupid but when the only way to edit HDMI settings is with HDMI enabled, and the only way you can do that is via watching your TV, its hard going. I read up on the Wiki reference audio/video stuttering and this helped in a way, but it would have been nice to have a DONT stream or use any audio whilst I was setting things up in a way, as I has disabled the onboard sound, and removed realtek drivers just to take them out of the system, and only today really, have I worked out I can have HDMI audio out enabled and still use the PC to do this sort of stuff.
XBMC External Players
I eventually got external players working via Wikis and forums, so could play full 3D blurays. Another issue and obviously not XBMCs issue is once you setup your fancy graphics card to play 3D, it gives you the option of staying in a "cocked" 3D environment, so when PowerDVD does fire up after an ISO is mounted, it jumps into 3D straight away, this is fine unless you want to view 3D HSBS/OU, because since its already in a 3D mode, when you press 3D like you would normally do to select either 3D HSHS/OU then all it does is switch 3D off. So you need to go to a Resolution that does not have 3D enabled next to it, and then start a HSBS or OU and then select the 3D option that suits. A reason I went to Gotham Alphas....
XBMC 13 – Gotham
I messed up here in a way I thought, as I never read up on keeping my userdata folder, so had to start from scratch again. Not the end of the world, just select the folders one at a time and let the scraper do its stuff. Really liked the 3D side of things, with the option of what to select. But lost Aeon Nox, as I was not aware that people had lives and could not update themes every living minute.
So I uninstalled this and put Frodo back on, well things started going wrong here. It would never start up and I kept on getting a box with an error in it. Error : Unable to create application. Exiting.
Lost a lot of time here, for no real reason than me being stupid. By this point I had disabled the on-board sound, and HDMI output was at off. Spent ages trying to find answers to a problem I had created. If I had read the log it told me. FATAL: CApplication::Create: Failed to start the AudioEngine.. So the only option left for me was to either enable the Realtek onboard or do it via my TV, as I sad I have it sussed now how to have audio out and PC screen to on, but it was more wasted time, my fault of course, and again it would be nice if XBMC did start up even if it cant find any sound cards/outputs and maybe just give you a warning. All I wanted to do was setup my scraps and skin.
So back to Frodo again, this is when it really all went wrong yesterday. As I said I have Stereoscopic set up so I can watch 3D films on my TV. This was never an issue till last night. All I did was select use Fullscreen rather than Truescreen or the other way about, when my screen in XBMC went to this. http://http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?tid=176289. Now this did fix it when switching off 3D stereoscopic to off in the Nvidia settings, but now I can't use 3D. So last night this morning, I played with settings, switched back and forth with Truescreen/Fullscreen on and off, changed resolutions. XBMC always showed up fine on my TV, but not on the PC, I just could not get rid of it apart from switching 3D off on the Nvidia side. Ah I thought lets stick Gotham back on, this morning, it has options to use 3D. Never made any difference. So back to Frodo, still the same. I just reinstalled my Graphics drivers again and it seems to have gone away, and I now have Gotham back on and will try the Aeon Nox GIT version to see if its workable. 3D options setup again in the Nvidia control panel, so go ficure.
Been interesting...I need to stop messing and watch a film now. But I just seem to get somewhere and its back to square one.
Biggest killer today was having the foresight to back up Userdata, Install Gotham and see all my movies again, once I overwrote the Userdata folder, but no all I get is the listing of File location folders under files, but its back to an empty Movies option and back to scraping everything again...arrgggggh ! 
Ah just worked out all I had to do was rescan and all the covers and info was back in place...happy days.
My Setup
PC
Intel® Core™ i3-2120 CPU @ 3.30GHz
Gigabyte H61M-S2PV
Nvidia GTX 650 - Latest Drivers GeForce R331 28/10/2013
8 Gb Ram
Windows 7 Pro 64 Bit
TV/AVR
LG BH7420P/LG 55LM760T
It started off quite sedately, I have a WD Live Hub use for all media purposes, but I decided to buy an HDMI cable and have a play. I have not lost ? 2 weeks messing about with XBMC in one way or another.
EDID Issues
I lost a lot of time messing with this, and obviously nothing to do with XBMC, and in fact I think I was just trying to play Mkv files from my collection via VLC or Media Player, but the main sticking point was only seeing 2 channels, and I read up about how you needed 8 to display in the sound settings to get HD audio. This was from either the XBMC wiki, or Nvidia forums and the likes. After messing with EDID reading apps, and trying to make my own, I came across a post that turned it all on its head, it basically said it CAN say only 2 Channels, this actually is Windows telling you the max channels it can pass uncompressed LPCM audio over. http://http://www.avsforum.com/t/1227161...5xxxs/2880 (I know this is for ATI cards, but its much the same scenario). So even if it does only say 2 Channels if like mine it says DTS/Dolby Digitial in the lower box, then you will get DTS in 5.1 via any passthrough method your media player
has.
This works fine for 5.1 Channels, even though you can read various forums that tell you different. http://wiki.xbmc.org/index.php?title=Win...udioEngine
IMPORTANT - For HD audio to work then Max Number of Channels must be reported as 8 if anything other than 8 is reported then HD audio will not work even if DTS-HD and TrueHD are listed in the Encoded Formats box. is not actually true.
This was after bookmarking 10's of pages on how to fix, so anyway, I started reading up on VLC/Media player, I then started messing with sound settings and eventually got my AVR to display DTS/AC3 and movies were playing fine via HDMI in a click in the PC Folder and then the file plays in VLC sort of way.
XBMC Audio
Now what I also lost a lot of time with was HDMI out audio for XBMC. The main part was having to set it up via my TV and being able to read web pages at the same time. This may sound stupid but when the only way to edit HDMI settings is with HDMI enabled, and the only way you can do that is via watching your TV, its hard going. I read up on the Wiki reference audio/video stuttering and this helped in a way, but it would have been nice to have a DONT stream or use any audio whilst I was setting things up in a way, as I has disabled the onboard sound, and removed realtek drivers just to take them out of the system, and only today really, have I worked out I can have HDMI audio out enabled and still use the PC to do this sort of stuff.
XBMC External Players
I eventually got external players working via Wikis and forums, so could play full 3D blurays. Another issue and obviously not XBMCs issue is once you setup your fancy graphics card to play 3D, it gives you the option of staying in a "cocked" 3D environment, so when PowerDVD does fire up after an ISO is mounted, it jumps into 3D straight away, this is fine unless you want to view 3D HSBS/OU, because since its already in a 3D mode, when you press 3D like you would normally do to select either 3D HSHS/OU then all it does is switch 3D off. So you need to go to a Resolution that does not have 3D enabled next to it, and then start a HSBS or OU and then select the 3D option that suits. A reason I went to Gotham Alphas....
XBMC 13 – Gotham
I messed up here in a way I thought, as I never read up on keeping my userdata folder, so had to start from scratch again. Not the end of the world, just select the folders one at a time and let the scraper do its stuff. Really liked the 3D side of things, with the option of what to select. But lost Aeon Nox, as I was not aware that people had lives and could not update themes every living minute.
So I uninstalled this and put Frodo back on, well things started going wrong here. It would never start up and I kept on getting a box with an error in it. Error : Unable to create application. Exiting.
Lost a lot of time here, for no real reason than me being stupid. By this point I had disabled the on-board sound, and HDMI output was at off. Spent ages trying to find answers to a problem I had created. If I had read the log it told me. FATAL: CApplication::Create: Failed to start the AudioEngine.. So the only option left for me was to either enable the Realtek onboard or do it via my TV, as I sad I have it sussed now how to have audio out and PC screen to on, but it was more wasted time, my fault of course, and again it would be nice if XBMC did start up even if it cant find any sound cards/outputs and maybe just give you a warning. All I wanted to do was setup my scraps and skin.
So back to Frodo again, this is when it really all went wrong yesterday. As I said I have Stereoscopic set up so I can watch 3D films on my TV. This was never an issue till last night. All I did was select use Fullscreen rather than Truescreen or the other way about, when my screen in XBMC went to this. http://http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?tid=176289. Now this did fix it when switching off 3D stereoscopic to off in the Nvidia settings, but now I can't use 3D. So last night this morning, I played with settings, switched back and forth with Truescreen/Fullscreen on and off, changed resolutions. XBMC always showed up fine on my TV, but not on the PC, I just could not get rid of it apart from switching 3D off on the Nvidia side. Ah I thought lets stick Gotham back on, this morning, it has options to use 3D. Never made any difference. So back to Frodo, still the same. I just reinstalled my Graphics drivers again and it seems to have gone away, and I now have Gotham back on and will try the Aeon Nox GIT version to see if its workable. 3D options setup again in the Nvidia control panel, so go ficure.
Been interesting...I need to stop messing and watch a film now. But I just seem to get somewhere and its back to square one.
Biggest killer today was having the foresight to back up Userdata, Install Gotham and see all my movies again, once I overwrote the Userdata folder, but no all I get is the listing of File location folders under files, but its back to an empty Movies option and back to scraping everything again...arrgggggh ! Ah just worked out all I had to do was rescan and all the covers and info was back in place...happy days.
