[joel_ezekiel]

Hi there, ive tried searching endlessly and i cannot figure out what is wrong with my XBMC so i figured i would make a post here and see if one of the "Pro's" could have a look at my problem.

I'll start from the start, i was using ubuntu+xbmc and realized that the motherboard and video i was using used to have OSX on it so i figured i would give it a try, i managed to install it no worries with vanilla kernel its very well supported motherboard. Anyway ever since day one i have not been able to get spdif passthrough or the audio to work properly in XBMC at all, however with plex it works fine... this would be ok if plex could scrape my tv/movie info but im not happy with the app they seem to be making the product to commercialized and adding in "apps" and "app stores" etc. when i just want to play/scrape my movies. I have also tested with mplayer and it also plays with passthrough spdif without an issue. I am using a ga-g33m-ds2r motheboard (if thats of any help) and im using the spdif header > coax. osx version is 10.5.6 with latest updates and here is the error log with the information that seems relevant to a file i was trying to play.

If anyone could shed some light on this issue i would be eternally greatful as this is the last thing missing from the perfect, mamex/xbmc/itunes HTPC , also i have currently built the latest svn to this date on the same mac im playing it from.

Here's the log:
http://pastebin.com/m3f677f29

[davilla]

spdif passthrough and audio seems to be working for others, so there must be something special about your setup.

You log says "NOTICE: Picked device: [Built-in Digital Output]" so XBMC is picking spdif passthrough.

Questions are:
1) exact svn version, svn is churning fast right now so we need the exact svn version you are running.

2) OSX version, I'm guessing some 10.5 variant.

3) Audio setup, what receiver?

4) A sample of the content you are trying to play. Is this pure audio or audio/video content. What flavor, AC3, DTS. Details please. It could be that the issue is a codec issue.

5) There's a branch in svn that uses CoreAudio instead of portaudio. That would be nice to test but sdpif passthrough is not implemented yet.

[phi2039]

In addition, could you give a little more detail around what you mean by "isn't working"? Do you get 2-channel sound, do you get screaming digital noise? What does your receiver say it is receiving (PCM, DD, DTS, etc)?

[joel_ezekiel]

ok, by not working what i mean is there is no sound at all, the reciever is picking up nothing, this happens on anything with dd5.1/dts sound, dvd, mkv, avi, any variant of the format so its not an issue from the video file.

the exact svn version is imo irrelevant, its happened on any version ive tried as well as the pre build package on the website or the the pre build svn's posted on the forum.

the receiver im using is a sony str-k1600 and osx version is 10.5.6+latest updates. I don't really know what else i can tell you that would be of any help, I did also ask on the Plex forums and they said that they use a different audio system or something like that, which is why Plex works.

I should add that movies with mp3 audio work fine.

[davilla]

the exact svn version is imo irrelevant, its happened on any version ive tried as well as the pre build package on the website or the the pre build svn's posted on the forum.

The exact svn version is relevant to reproducing and fixing the problem. It syncs us devs to the actual source code.

I did also ask on the Plex forums and they said that they use a different audio system or something like that, which is why Plex works

Regardless of what the Plex devs say, they are clueless about XBMC source code and they prefer to hack fixes into place rather than understand and address the real issues. We prefer to understand and fix the real issues.

The way this works is, we ask questions, you answer them. Sometimes you might not think the question is relevant but don't try to out guess us, just answer the question. And have patience and remember that we might be on very different time zones so response cycle time will not be immediate. We really want to understand why you don't have a working spdif passthrough and fix the issue so it does work properly.

Your receiver gives no indication of seeing any digital audio. Yet mplayer can output digital and your receiver does see it. That means you don't have a hardware or cable problem so we can cross that off the list.

Your logs say it's selecting "Built-in Digital Output" so spdif passthrough must be selected in the XBMC settings.

I'll need to wait until phi2039 sees these results before proceeding further.

[joel_ezekiel]

The exact svn version is relevant to reproducing and fixing the problem. It syncs us devs to the actual source code.

Well, i will update the svn to the latest at this second and tell you the version number, i might as well update and see if it magically works anyway.

Here it is. 19027

[davilla]

Seems to magically work for me using r19020 on new MacBook (10.5), older MacBook (1.4) and various AppleTVs with different atvos versions.

What are your settings -> audio hardware ?

[S80_UK]

May I chip in...?

Not sure if it's relevant, but there's a bunch of people on the AV forums have had issues with the same motherboard that the OP says he's using...

http://www.avforums.com/forums/home-cine...-ds2r.html

They probably aren't running OSX, but if they have problems then maybe the board is not as "standard" as some.

[joel_ezekiel]

Thank you for your input, but it seems those people just had a problem configuring the realtek software in windows properly.

I have however had this board running linux, windows, OSX and spdif has always worked if configured properly, and as i said it works with any other software and XBMC menu sounds or analogue source plays through pcm fine.

and by settings -> audio hardware, do you mean...

audio output - digital
dd capable - yes
dts capable - yes
audio output device - build in digital output
downmix - no
?

[davilla]

audio output - digital
dd capable - yes
dts capable - yes
audio output device - build in digital output
downmix - no
?

just for kicks, set downmix = yes and tell me what that does?

[joel_ezekiel]

I am pretty sure it plays the video in fast motion, similar to the problem i had with ubuntu not resampling 30something khz audio with alsamixer, which i did fix (cant remember what i did). I will check again when i can and post back here if the result is different.

edit: oh sorry thats right, i remember now, if i do that i get "dec error" on the receiver and no sound.

if this is of any use to you here is the log of trying to downsample
http://pastebin.com/m73d110f0

[davilla]

can you pastebin the full xbmc.log ?

also, please explain this comment

it works with any other software and XBMC menu sounds or analogue source plays through pcm fine

Are you saying that "XBMC menu sounds" are playing using sdpif passthrough?

[joel_ezekiel]

yes, analogue sound is being output over digital in 2 channel fine, its only not passing through dd5.1 or dts streams, and as it would seem it cannot downmix the stream either, sounds like some sort of problem in the way xbmc and my computer handles encoded digital streams, strange.

i will post a full log of launching and trying to play 300.mkv later today when i get a chance.

edit: by analogue i mean sounds not encoded in dd or dts format

[davilla]

yes, analogue sound is being output over digital in 2 channel fine, its only not passing through dd5.1 or dts streams, and as it would seem it cannot downmix the stream either, sounds like some sort of problem in the way xbmc and my computer handles encoded digital streams, strange.

i will post a full log of launching and trying to play 300.mkv later today when i get a chance.

edit: by analogue i mean sounds not encoded in dd or dts format

ok, odd usage of the term but now I understand what you mean.

To sum up:

a) you get two channel audio over spdif
b) you do not get multi-channel audio over spdif.
c) if playing multi-channel audio and down-mixing is enable, you do not get any audio.

can you use MediaInfo and pastebin the audio results for 300.mkv.

[joel_ezekiel]

http://pastebin.com/m34dc90c1
thats for mediainfo

http://pastebin.com/m64b11f9a
thats the full log of me starting xbmc and trying to play 300.mkv