2014-05-16, 21:54
Good day to my favourite Media Center guys.
I've been having a small issue regarding the new Gotham release, which I only realised was a problem about two days ago.
I have an Asus Crossfire V Formula-Z motherboard (details here) which has an SPDIF output that has hardware DTS Encoding (also called DTS Connect).
My receiver is a Sony Muteki STR-KM5000 which supports DTS and Dolby Digital-Ex.
I have an Optoma HD33 projector which is connected in the following configuration: PC -> Receiver -> Projector.
For some reason HDMI audio never worked, and probably never will because of incompatibility with the projector+receiver+pc...
So, I have my receiver connected via the Optical output of the PC, which supports DTS Connect. This works rather well, because the audio device in Windows pretends to be a 5.1 channel PCM device with the ability of SPDIF passthrough. I never use passthrough because I prefer setting the receiver to a predetermined volume and then use the Windows volume control to control the volume, with passthrough you cannot control the volume in software at all. Also, the DTS Connect encoding works very well with games and stuff that isn't surround sound, 2 channel sources go out as the front 2 channels over the DTS 5.1 stream, at which point I tell the receiver to decode the LFE and not mess with the sound any further.
I don't know the exact details of how it works, but it does register as a purely digital SPDIF device in XBMC. When using VLC, I have to tell VLC in the audio output configuration that the device is a 5.1 channel device, and this works fine. In XBMC Frodo I could manually select the amount of channels and have the same results as VLC, true 5.1 channel audio to my receiver. With Gotham however, it seems like the SPDIF output has taken precedence and I can no longer force the output to be true 5.1 channel audio, I only get 2 channels. Passthrough audio works, kinda, BluRay disks do not have audio at all, I don't think my receiver supports DTS-HD.
Just to be absolutely sure my ears weren't deceiving me, I found a channel test video from Dolby's site, with which I then confirmed my suspicions.
I use the "Channel Check" video from the Dolby site: http://www.dolby.com/us/en/consumer/tech...nload.html
This video tests each channel individually, in XBMC Gotham I can hear all channels, but they play over only over the front left and right channels (like it's downmixed)
This is my VLC configuration that works correctly:
Is there a way to override this limitation with a command line option or a config file entry?
PS: I forgot to add that if I use the DirectSound ouput option for my Audio device, the DTS connect takes over and plays in the 2 channel way, but if I switch to WSAPI, my receiver reports that its getting a 2 Channel PCM stream (which effectively overrides the DTS connect).
I've been having a small issue regarding the new Gotham release, which I only realised was a problem about two days ago.
I have an Asus Crossfire V Formula-Z motherboard (details here) which has an SPDIF output that has hardware DTS Encoding (also called DTS Connect).
My receiver is a Sony Muteki STR-KM5000 which supports DTS and Dolby Digital-Ex.
I have an Optoma HD33 projector which is connected in the following configuration: PC -> Receiver -> Projector.
For some reason HDMI audio never worked, and probably never will because of incompatibility with the projector+receiver+pc...
So, I have my receiver connected via the Optical output of the PC, which supports DTS Connect. This works rather well, because the audio device in Windows pretends to be a 5.1 channel PCM device with the ability of SPDIF passthrough. I never use passthrough because I prefer setting the receiver to a predetermined volume and then use the Windows volume control to control the volume, with passthrough you cannot control the volume in software at all. Also, the DTS Connect encoding works very well with games and stuff that isn't surround sound, 2 channel sources go out as the front 2 channels over the DTS 5.1 stream, at which point I tell the receiver to decode the LFE and not mess with the sound any further.
I don't know the exact details of how it works, but it does register as a purely digital SPDIF device in XBMC. When using VLC, I have to tell VLC in the audio output configuration that the device is a 5.1 channel device, and this works fine. In XBMC Frodo I could manually select the amount of channels and have the same results as VLC, true 5.1 channel audio to my receiver. With Gotham however, it seems like the SPDIF output has taken precedence and I can no longer force the output to be true 5.1 channel audio, I only get 2 channels. Passthrough audio works, kinda, BluRay disks do not have audio at all, I don't think my receiver supports DTS-HD.
Just to be absolutely sure my ears weren't deceiving me, I found a channel test video from Dolby's site, with which I then confirmed my suspicions.
I use the "Channel Check" video from the Dolby site: http://www.dolby.com/us/en/consumer/tech...nload.html
This video tests each channel individually, in XBMC Gotham I can hear all channels, but they play over only over the front left and right channels (like it's downmixed)
This is my VLC configuration that works correctly:
Is there a way to override this limitation with a command line option or a config file entry?
PS: I forgot to add that if I use the DirectSound ouput option for my Audio device, the DTS connect takes over and plays in the 2 channel way, but if I switch to WSAPI, my receiver reports that its getting a 2 Channel PCM stream (which effectively overrides the DTS connect).