[farhope]

I installed the new XBMC live 10.0 on my Asrock ION 330. When i play MKV (DTS) or MP4 (AAC) I only get sound from the left and right front spreakers (5.1 setup). I tried several settings (including asound.conf) without results. The previous version of XBMC live (version 9) on exactly the same hardware setup was working fine out of the box.

Setup:
- Asrock ION 330
- XBMC Live 10.0
- Denon AVR-1706 5.1 setup
- SPDIF iec958 (optical)

Settings XBMC:
- Audio Output : Optical/Coax
- Speaker Config: 5.1
- Boost vol. : Y
- Dolby Digital (AC3) Capable Receiver : Y
- DTS Capable Receiver : Y
- Audio output device : iec958
- Passthrough output device : iec958

root@XBMCLive:~# aplay -l
**** List of PLAYBACK Hardware Devices ****
card 0: NVidia [HDA NVidia], device 0: VT1708S Analog [VT1708S Analog]
Subdevices: 2/2
Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
Subdevice #1: subdevice #1
card 0: NVidia [HDA NVidia], device 1: VT1708S Digital [VT1708S Digital]
Subdevices: 0/1
Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 0: NVidia [HDA NVidia], device 3: NVIDIA HDMI [NVIDIA HDMI]
Subdevices: 1/1
Subdevice #0: subdevice #0

root@XBMCLive:~# aplay -L
null
Discard all samples (playback) or generate zero samples (capture)
front:CARD=NVidia,DEV=0
HDA NVidia, VT1708S Analog
Front speakers
surround40:CARD=NVidia,DEV=0
HDA NVidia, VT1708S Analog
4.0 Surround output to Front and Rear speakers
surround41:CARD=NVidia,DEV=0
HDA NVidia, VT1708S Analog
4.1 Surround output to Front, Rear and Subwoofer speakers
surround50:CARD=NVidia,DEV=0
HDA NVidia, VT1708S Analog
5.0 Surround output to Front, Center and Rear speakers
surround51:CARD=NVidia,DEV=0
HDA NVidia, VT1708S Analog
5.1 Surround output to Front, Center, Rear and Subwoofer speakers
surround71:CARD=NVidia,DEV=0
HDA NVidia, VT1708S Analog
7.1 Surround output to Front, Center, Side, Rear and Woofer speakers
iec958:CARD=NVidia,DEV=0
HDA NVidia, VT1708S Digital
IEC958 (S/PDIF) Digital Audio Output
hdmi:CARD=NVidia,DEV=0
HDA NVidia, NVIDIA HDMI
HDMI Audio Output


I hope somebody can help me out. Watching DTS movies in stereo now

ps. according the releasenotes version 10.0 live encoding AAC to AC3 and the wakeup from sleep issue also should be fixed. However both issues are still there.

[Aenima99x]

In the settings, set "Speaker Config" to 2.0 - I know it doesn't seem right, but it works.

[farhope]

When I put the setting on:
- Audio Output : Optical/Coax
- Speaker Config: 2.0
- Boost vol. : Y
- Dolby Digital (AC3) Capable Receiver : Y
- DTS Capable Receiver : Y
- Audio output device : iec958
- Passthrough output device : iec958

Then on the reciever display I see DTS as source however I get stereo (only left and right front speakers) instead of 5.1 via optical.


When I put the setting on:
- Audio Output : Optical/Coax
- Speaker Config: 2.0
- Boost vol. : Y
- Dolby Digital (AC3) Capable Receiver : N
- DTS Capable Receiver : N
- Audio output device : iec958
- Passthrough output device : iec958
I get Dolby Pro Logic II on my reciever display instead of DTS, because the reciever is recieving plain stereo over SPDIF. With Dolby Pro Logic II I get 5.1 sound however this is really not DTS or Dolby Digital/AC3.

I really hoped that this new Live version 10 would give me additional live encoding to full AC3 from an AAC source as mentioned in the releasenotes(because in Live version 9 it was downsampled to stereo). Now I get even worse, because also the DTS source is downsampled to plain stereo via optical (in Live version 9 I had 5.1 DD/DTS via optical).

[wizbang]

I get a very similar issue with my ASUS AT3IONT-I motherboard.

I found that everything by AAC encoded files work fine. i.e the 5.1 sound is correct, but with AAC I only get 2 channel audio.

I have managed to get things working by changing the "Audio Output" from "HDMI" to "Optical/COAX" and then I got all channels working with my AV Receiver. Before trying this I had spent hours testing the NVDIA HDMI outputs as there have been some complaints on the Net about the motherboard I have, but this was definitely not the cause of the problem. I tried out various versions of NVIDIA drivers, but none fixed the problem and then by sheer fluke I switched the Audio Output to "Optical/COAX" and the centre and rear speakers burst in to life. It appears to be a XBMC issue.

Screenshot of settings that I would expect to work i.e. HDMI audio output (but this only works with DTS and AC3):



Screenshot of settings that actually work i.e I get 5.1 audio from DTS, AC3 & AAC with this setting:



Update: I forgot to mention that I have my ASUS AT3IONT-I motherboard connected to my AV reciever by an HDMI cable, not an optical cable.

[FireMan]

Probably, you need to unmute the optical out in Linux.
Go to a console (exit xbmc or press ctrl+alt+f2), run alsa mixer (sudo alsamixer), then search for IEC958 (you will probably need to press right arrow several times, until appears). You can unmute all IEC958 interfaces (IEC958, IEC958 D, IEC958 1, etc.) highlighting it then pressin M.
Press esc to exit alsa mixer. Go back to XBMC (alt+f1 or alt+f7) or restart your system to test the sound.

Cheers.