Kodi Community Forum

Hi,

I have Shuttle XS35GT running XBMCbuntu v13.1 (git:f2acae7) and it's been running fine, outputting to my TV via HDMI.

I now want to pass the DD or DTS stream into my (old) AV amp which does not have any HDMI ports, so I bought a USB -> S/PDIF converter (http://www.amazon.co.uk/HA-info-U2-Conve...B00A2QKZ16). In Settings->System->Audio Output menu I enabled "Enable passthrough" and selected the device "PHIREE U2, S/PDIF" and enabled the "DD capable receiver" and the "DTS capable receiver" options and trying playing a DVD (iso) and also a real DVD and the amp does not see the digital stream - it's getting something and I can hear a signal (which sounds like a data stream of sorts), but it's not locking on and getting anything sensible. I know the amp is OK as it can lockon to DD streams from a standalone DVD player.

Can anyone suggest any other settings I need to look at or how I can debug this ?

Steve

Nope, if everything is really as you have written ... no chance :-)

Provide a Debug Log to be sure.

Hi,

The debug log is here; http://xbmclogs.com/show.php?id=240191

I can see the two variants of the device; Analog and S/PDIF. The logs suggest the Analog variant is being used for the playback, but I obviously want the S/PDIF variant. Perhaps I'm just reading the logs wrong.

I've seen another post of a user that has this device working for the previous version of XBMC; http://blog.oxplot.com/ac3-dts-passthrough-xbmc/ so I'm hoping its possible and i'm just doing something wrong.

fritsch, do the logs reveal anything ?

A simplier log is here; http://xbmclogs.com/show.php?id=240935

Produce a logfile with this sample, directly from local disk: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/5572...20Test.avi

Next thing to try:

1) quit xbmc
2) wget http://onse.fi/files/ac3_the_other_side_44khz.wav
3.) aplay -D yourRawoutputDevice -r 48000 -fs16_le Canyon-5.1-48khz-448kbit.wav

And see what you get

Edit: Linked the wrong file, needs to be an encapsulated ac3 file.

Hi,

I copied that example file to the local disk and played it - it was similar to playing local ISOs (or ISOs via NFS). A data stream noise and the Amp unable to detect it as DD or DTS. The log of the session is; http://xbmclogs.com/show.php?id=241486

Do the second test. from the shell.

OK, I think we may be getting somewhere. Listing the devices:


My understanding is that the Phiree U2 presents two devices:

• DEV 0 - Analog
  
• DEV 1 - S/PDIF
  

So I tried the device with the S/PDIF in its description:

This gives the usual signal noise. But that DEV=0 looks wrong to me.

I then tried:

and success - the amp locks onto a DD signal and the music is played !

So I suppose this raises two questions:

1. Can I specify that plughw device for XBMC to use ?
   
2. Is the driver or Alsa transposing the U2 devices ?
   

Thanks for your help so far !

I think AESinkALSA does not correctly detect your device. Out of curiosity and not meant as a solution, can you try to install pulseaudio and configure accordingly to the wiki (2 channels, enable dts, ac3 for this output device?) does that work?

Wiki: http://wiki.xbmc.org/index.php?title=PulseAudio

I've tried PulseAudio and that also does not work - again it looks like its picking the analog device:


So I suppose the question is can I specify the 'plughw' device for the passthrough ? Its obviously not available on the drop down menus within XBMC

Can you try creating a /etc/asound.conf file with the following contents:

And to see if aplay command with the iec958 devie works then?

Hi, that did not seem to make any difference. Playing with the 0 device produced the same noise and the device 1 was not found:

My mistake, try this one instead:

I'm afraid that entry caused no iec958 entries to be available: