[LIVE] DTS Over SPDIF - Amp shows error
#1
'Ning all.

I've managed to resolve several issues over the past few days, but I seem to be stuck on this one. I've spent a night or two trawling for difference configs, but always seem to be back to this point. I'm currently at work, so can't include debug log. Can be pastebinned tonight if required..

XBMC live on Zotac Ion board. All audio is happily played through S/PDif. Anything encoded with DTS is prompting the reciever to display ERROR and can't hear anything - I've checked the dos for the reciever, and definatley supports DTS (though I can't find reference if DTS is supported through optical, I'm simply assuming). I have no isses with AAC or AC3. XBMC itself reports no errors.

Audio hardware shows ac3/dts enabled, sound output is set to default, passthrouhg is currently showing iec958.

I've checked ALSA (1.20) config, and as far as I can see, everything appears ok, however, it's sort of new ground for me, so I might be slipping up.
my asound.conf shows

pcm.!default {
type hw
card 0
device 1
}

Again, there's nothing showing an error in the player, but the reciever refuses to decode the stream. Could it be something I've neglected to configure on the board/alsa/xbmc, or could the be an issue with my reciever?

I'd be happy enough if I could stream as ac3 or aac as the amp is happy, and tbh, I just want it to work Big Grin
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#2
Firstly would probably need to know the receiver make and model to ascertain it's specs to see if it can in fact handle it ... So I'm guessing it's an optical, just make sure there's no kinks in it (I had an optical cable once which had been kinked too far and wouldn't play DD or DTS properly)
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#3
Interesting point, I borked a cable the other night, wouldn't play anything Sad
Fortunately, cables are cheap enough and I have one or two spare - might be worth trying alternates....

Sound system is a Panasonic SC-HT900 . The manual details DTS, and has case badges to that effect (as well as DTS on screen when recieving). Whether it will decode DTS over Optical
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#4
Hmm, I have had a quick google and it seems other have this problem too. Looking at the manual for your amp, it doesn't state is supports DTS over the spdif. Looking at http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=781416 they state no dts over spdif too.

This is similar to a few other posts that google throws up, i think you may be out of luck on this and will have to opt to have dts downmixed.
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#5
Noooo,
That's more annoying than problematic I suppose, especially after the hours spent hehe Smile Thanks for looking though, saves me spending another late night.

The next question would be then, can I convert from DTS to AC3 on the fly? or worst case, configure ALSA to only downsample DTS. I dont' want to re-encode the media if I can help, and definatley wouldn't want to downsample all audio. (or am I being thick, and AC3/AAC would still present in all channels?)

Again, thanks for help, and quick response
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#6
Have never had to do it myself as i don't have that problem with my amps.

If you uncheck "DTS Capable Receiver" in your audio hardware, what happens? I had always assumed it would downmix multichannel to stereo.

Not ideal, but better than nothing.
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#7
Fails to initialise audio when playing any video with DTS sound Sad
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#8
What about if you enable downmix multichannel too?
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#9
Will try tonight, but I assume this will downmix ac3 too, want to avoid that if possible.
I don't ahve a lot of DTS media at the moment, so could just dump it and avoid DTS in future.

If anyone knows how to reencode on the fly using Alsa or xbmc would be great to know.

Thanks for your advice, big help Smile
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#10
I'm not sure - i would expect it to passthrough ac3 and downmix dts but i may be mistaken.

Also, when changing these settings - i have had to reboot sometimes for them to take effect.
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#11
Just spent a while looking at other posts,
Does anybody know how to configure Alsa to downscale DTS to AC3 on-the-fly?
If not, I just realised I only have about half a dozen DTS files Big Grin
If I don't get a resolution in a few hours, I'll just convert the files Smile
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[LIVE] DTS Over SPDIF - Amp shows error0