[pantherman007]

VDPAU support convinced me to try to move from Windows to Linux, and overall I'm in good shape (with one exception below). Here's my setup:

Ubuntu 8.10 mini, installed per XBMC wiki instructions
Gigabyte GA-E7AUM-DS2H (onboard nVidia 9400)
Intel E5200
4GB RAM
nVidia driver 185.13
Alsa 1.0.19
XBMC 19098

Video over VGA and audio over S/PDIF works great. VDPAU kicks in for the MPEG4 stuff and looks great with almost no CPU. AC3 and DTS both get to the receiver over S/PDIF fine.

My problem is when I try to switch over to HDMI (which is enabled in the BIOS). I switch the audio device and passthru output to HDMI in the settings, and things then get weird when I playback:
- Video with AC3 audio has static-y audio
- Video with DTS audio is silent
- Audio (MP3) playback is 10-20% too fast and higher pitched.

I see a lot of discussion about Pulse audio problems, but the wiki install guide says its not required if you're doing S/PDIF or HDMI passthrough, so I'm guessing that's not my problem.

I can grab some logs and upload (will take some work since I don't have gnome installed) if it will help - I'm hoping there's something obvious that I'm missing due to my Linux inexperience.

Thanks for any help...

[althekiller]

Does the hdmi audio work in ubunu in general? If not, head over to there forums and get that resolved first.

[olympia]

I am not sure about why are you having issues with AC3 and DTS passthrough.

But for analog, try:

Code:

sudo nano /etc/asound.conf

and insert the following:

Code:

pcm.!default {
    type plug
    slave {
        pcm "hdmi"
    }
}

Report back on how it worked.

[Xbmcer]

hi, this weekend i had same idea to start with linuXbmc.
and the same problem with the mp3 playing 10% too fast.

the following solution did the trick.

http://forum.xbmc.org/showpost.php?p=271...stcount=10

first i had HDMI and now i changed it to plughw:0,3 in the audio settings

[Haggy]

Using plughw:{marjor},{minor} is always a good solution because it converts 'incompatible' sample rates to more standard ones. If your equipment expects standardized 48KHz PCM audio but your source is 44.1 it may play too fast or not at all plughw solves this (as is for 22 KHz youtube videos as well).

[pantherman007]

Thanks everyone - I'll give those suggestions a shot as soon as I can.

Althekiller - I may need some more help with the Ubuntu in general question, as I'm not used to a system without a GUI front-end. For an installation based on minimal Intrepid install that boots directly to XBMC, what should I do to test whether it works in general? I can swap the hard drive out, do a full Intrepid install with Gnome, install XBMC, and then try HDMI if that's what you mean. But my understanding is that means Pulse will be installed which may not be a good thing.

[pantherman007]

Well, I tried both suggestions, but still no luck on AC3 over HDMI. The plughw:0,3 change didn't help or hurt. The asound edit seemed to make navigation sounds work over HDMI (I think they weren't working before, but were after).

I've decided that my Linux skills aren't good enough (yet) to handle the minimal install, boot direct to XBMC option and I don't want to waste anyone's time due to that. I'm going to reinstall with a full build of Ubuntu and try to get everything working there before I try the set-top-style setup again. I'll report back on whether I still have this problem after the reinstall.

[shassino]

U need kernel 2.6.28 to support hdmi audio intrepit is still on 2.6.27

[BLKMGK]

U need kernel 2.6.28 to support hdmi audio intrepit is still on 2.6.27

Bull. I am running 2.6.27-7-generic on two seperate machines with working HDMI audio. I have upgraded ALSA using a popular script from the Ubuntu forums and I've got current NVIDIA drivers. I get working HDMI audio for navigation sounds, stereo MP3, and AC3 5.1 movies just fine. I'm running 8.10 32bit Ubuntu on both machines. Pretty sure Pulse is also working on both boxes too as I do nothing to turn it off.

P.S. I'd share my settings (again) except that this is an ASUS board in both cases. The one that everyone sorted out awhile ago <shrug>

[pantherman007]

OK, I'm back. Did a fresh install and am now running the following:

Ubuntu 9.04beta (just in case the Linux kernel was a culprit)
Completely removed pulseaudio (just in case)
Upgraded ALSA to 1.0.19
Kept Jaunty Nvidia drivers - 180.44
XBMC version: 19247, vdpau enabled
MB and CPU same as original post

Connecting the PC direct to a Samsung TV over HDMI. From Gnome, I can playback music (MP3) and MKV files with AC3 sound just fine - correct speed, no static, etc. From XBMC on the same files I get the same problems as before - MP3s are playing too fast and at a higher pitch; MKVs have good video, but static-y audio.

After fighting with Linux all weekend, I'm going to take a day or so off, especially since this same build plays fine over non-HDMI connections. In a few days I'll switch things around again and upload a debug log to see if that shines a light on things.

[Ritzie]

Where do you plug in plughw:0,3? I don't have the navigational sounds and my mp3's are playing to fast.

I figured it out where to plug these settings. Let's see what happens