[FredipusRex]

I've finally moved my XBMC install onto my main TV setup (Samsung DLP, Onkyo SR-806). Due to the vagaries of the Onkyo, I could never get the computer to display (DVI/HDMI via an NVidia card) and play sound (via the soundcard - analog or SPDIF) at the same time - pretty sure it is a bug in the Onkyo firmware, as I could hear the sound when I was in the setup menu for the receiver, but not otherwise.

After days of frustration, I gave up and bought an ATI 5450 card. An hour later, I had sound and video. Best $40 I've ever spent.

My current problem is that sound is abnormally low in XBMC. In every other app (Firefox playing YouTube, WinAmp, VLC) the sound is loud and clear. In XBMC (Windows Vista, ATI 5450), it is muffled and low.

I've checked everything I can think of - I've looked at message boards for hours and all I see are a bunch of messages forlornly asking similar questions or suggestions to use "Audio Mixer" - which appears to be an XBMC Live-only plugin. It doesn't appear in the list of available program plugins - I even went to the extreme of finding a ZIP file of the 1.0.6 version of the plugin and manually installing it, but XBMC does not display it, so presumably it's not valid for Windows/Dharma 10.1.

Suggestions to modify the advancedsettings.xml to change the "headroom" left a lot to be desired - is higher better than lower? Vice versa?

I've tried both Dharma 10.0 and 10.1 to no avail.

Any ideas?

- Derf!

[FredipusRex]

Changing the headroom setting in advancedsettings.xml had no effect. I tried 0, 6, 12 and -6 just for giggles. No change in sound volume.

[jhsrennie]

It's such an obvious point that you've probably tried it, but is the XBMC sound at the max? Press + on the keyboard to check.

Is it just the videos that have a low sound level, i.e. are the navigation sounds normal, or is all sound from XBMC low?

JR

[xconverge]

DTS audio is very quiet for me where as ac3, mp3 and anything else is a suitable level. Is this a similar problem?

[FredipusRex]

D'oh! I have an MCE style remote and thought that it was passing the proper commands thru, but it wasn't. I attached a keyboard and hit "plus" and up the volume went right up... >hangs head in shame<

Now I've got to figure out how to map this weird remote. I'm using ShowKey to sniff what it sends and it says WM_APPCOMMAND/volume_up, but XBMC is ignoring it. I tried to edit both the Keymap and the MCERemote add-on to recognize that as a "VolumeUp" (or even a Notification) command, but no dice.

I'm wondering if WM_APPCOMMANDS are just not getting to XBMC - the remote mostly sends keystrokes (CTL-P, ALT-T kind of thing), but certain buttons (like the volume and channel buttons) appear to be Media Center or AppCommand stuff.

It's this remote, which appears to have Linux support, but the Windows side is a little more rough. I hacked in a registry entry to have the green button bring up XBMC, but it looks like I've got more hacking to go... >sigh<

[jhsrennie]

By design XBMC ignores the volume APPCOMMANDs, so they get passed on to Windows and control the system volume. At one point I did change XBMC to grab the volume APPCOMMANDS and use them to control the XBMC volume, but I got shouted at and had to back out the change.

The volume buttons should work. Just leave the XBMC volume at the maximum and use the volume buttons to change the system volume. On my system I have the sound going through my HiFi amp and I use the amp remote control to adjust the volume.

The VRC-1100 is a perfectly good remote control, but unlike eHome remotes it isn't configurable. The easiest way to get the green button to run XBMC is this one:

http://inchoatethoughts.com/launching-xb...ter-remote

JR

[FredipusRex]

I'm surprised that APPCOMMAND support wasn't just left as a configuration option - seems a better idea than going to the hassle of developing it and then removing it.

Other buttons on the remote (like the channel buttons) are also APPCOMMANDs, and those would be useful to remap.

[topfs2]

we should probably have some consistency between the platforms here, linux does hinder it to be passed to the rest of the desktop environment, something I have found a tad annoying when using xbmc as just an app on my laptop.

Perhaps if --standalone then let xbmc control it? and if not standalone then let it slide through?

Another option is to plain have the internal control actually control system, and just skip any volume deamplification in xbmc? Not sure if all audio systems on all platforms gives systems volume information?

[jhsrennie]

I'm surprised that APPCOMMAND support wasn't just left as a configuration option - seems a better idea than going to the hassle of developing it and then removing it.

Other buttons on the remote (like the channel buttons) are also APPCOMMANDs, and those would be useful to remap.

I'm currently tinkering with the keyboard handling in XBMC, and part of what I'm doing will be to make APPCOMMANDs mappable through an appcommand.xml file just like keyboard.xml. Sadly paying my mortgage and feeding my children is taking priority at the moment, though I'm occasionally tempted to sell the children :-)

JR