[mikari]

Hi there,

My config:
- XBMC SVN 19532 (but tried many other loads, incl. 8.10)
- Win XP SP3, fresh install
- Intel Core 2 Duo E6600, 2400 MHz (9 x 267), 2 GB RAM
- ATI Radeon X1950 Pro (RV570, Driver: 6.14.10.6925 - ATI Catalyst 9.3
- Creative SB Live! (CT4620), Microsoft driver 5.1.2535.0 from 01.07.2001
- PC connected to LCD TV via DVI
- Technotrend USB IR receiver + EG
- debug log: http://pastebin.com/m744b75b

My problem which starts to drive me nuts (forum search didn't reveal a hint as far as i can tell):

Audio files do not play or better said, they play only very rarely and randomly. (Default player is paplayer.)
When a song starts (should start) the title, cover art, current time and songlength show up in the GUI, but no sound and the current song time keeps staying at 0:00.
When i skip to the next song several times (~ 1-20 times), a song eventually starts to play normally.
On the next skip mostly the previously started song continues to play while the songtitle changes to the next song and songtimer is again frozen at 0:00.
Another skip: song stops playing, next title is displayed, timer at 0:00, no audio, another time the skip might also succeed. Random behaviour also here.
Well,..you get the point.
Analog or digital audio makes no difference.

I also tested with the Creative SBLive drivers ->
Result: Music playback is fine, but then video with AC3 passthrough causes strange video playback problems (audio hickups, A/V out of sync shortly -> some seconds of accelerated video playback -> some seconds of normal playback, etc.)
Switching back to the MS Audiodrivers: Video + AC3 is fine, but no (rare) music playback.

Aaargh!! :mad:

In the previous Windows XP installation everything worked with the MS sounddrivers. (The Creative drivers showed the same video+AC3 problems however)

In the log you see how i start to play an album and skip from song to song until finally a song really starts to play.

Last not least when i quit XBMC it just freezes as in ~50% of the cases (log). Sigh!

Music playback works with dvdplayer, but at every songstart there is a hickup. ~1 second sound - ~1 second hicks - normal play...

Every time a song fails to play with the MS drivers i see a Directsound buffer underrun in the log.
If XBMC freezes at Quit, the last command in the log is always NOTICE: unload skin


Ah, yes,..no problems with audio and video playback with any other SW like e.g. foobar, VLC, WMP, MPC,...

Any ideas anyone? I do not want to change my MC, since XBMC is just the best. Thanks a lot this way!

Mike

[phi2039]

I am looking into this. It appears that a threading problem has been introduced recently into paplayer. That being said, you should not be experiencing any AC3 passthrough problems using the official drivers from Creative. If this is still the case, I would like to pursue the cause of that, since I thought we had that licked about 1000 revisions ago.

[mikari]

phi2039,

regarding Creative drivers and AC3 passthrough:
later today i will give it another try with a fresh install of the Creative drivers and post a debug log. If you need any more symptoms either with the paplayer problem (/w MS driver) or the AC3 passthrough issue (/w Creative driver), please just tell.

Good to see, that one is not left out in the rain here.

regards,
Mike

[mikari]

ok, i did a fresh install of the Creative drivers 5.12.2.252 from 24.7.2002 (downloaded them again from the Creative website, just to be sure) -> PC reboot....

• Audio plays fine now
  
• Video: Audio setting = digital, AV receiver connected to S/P-DIF of SBLive! via coax.
  
• Movies w/o Dolby track, no problems with analogue or digital audio setting
  
• Movies with Dolby track: juddery behaviour as described in my first post: few seconds OK -> few seconds: loss of audio on AV receiver, Dolby LED goes out -> accelerated video -> few seconds OK again, Dolby LED on again on AVR, -> loop. (lots of warnings in the log)
  
• Same movie: changed the audio setting during playback to analogue -> all fine, no problems -> back to digital -> problems.
  

log: http://pastebin.com/fa54dd92
In the log you see, that i first started a movie w/o AC3, then a movie w/ AC3, switched audio to analogue then back to digital.

regards,
Mike

edit: but at least it seems there's no freeze anymore at exit with the Creative drivers (after ~ 10 tries)

[mikari]

bump

Any news here?

as said in my previous post, after changing to the Creative drivers instead of the MS drivers all music playback and freeze problems are gone, but with the Creative drivers and AC3 movies & digital sound enabled the movies show the "accelerated video" syndrom as described above.

[SilencerNL]

Sorry for the shameless bump, but I have the exact same problem on my system. I also use a soundblaster Live! with Dharma Beta 2 on Windows XP SP3. I tried to PM mikari, but I dont get a response.

Anyone know a sollution to the problem stated in the first post?

[mikari]

Hi SilencerNL,

Well, this was an old problem, which i never got resolved.
My personal solution finally was to get rid of my old SBLive card.
Now i use an ATI graphic card with a HDMI-out slot together with the related HDMI Audio drivers from Realtek, so the audio signals are routed through HDMI to my AVR->TV.
Everything works perfectly since then, just one cable from PC to AVR/TV, with perfect signals for both video and audio.

Sorry, cannot help help with the SBLive problem directly, but my reccommendation would be to either change to a modern sound card or to do it the same way as i do.

regards
Mike

[SilencerNL]

Hi mikari, thanks for your response... I was already thinking of buying a new soundcard, but I dont want to run into the same problems again. What soundcard do you use in your current setup? Or do you have a videocard with integrated sound?

[mikari]

Hi,
as mentioned in my previous post, in my setup the sound is routed through the ATI HD4850 card via HDMI. So no dedicated soundcard is involved.
(Actually i even do not have a soundcard installed, the onboard sound is sufficient for any other purpose) just google, e.g. "hdmi sound" and you will find a lot of infos..

but for sure also a solution with soundcard is fine, i just cannot give you recommendations here.