Kodi Community Forum

Ok I acquired an mkv rip 1.4Gb of http://www.play.com/DVD/Blu-ray/4-/12159...oduct.html rather than rip it myself.

720p 5.1 surround.

However when I play the movie there is only voice audio when the characters are in a position to be on the surround speakers (i only have 3.1 due to the layout of the room) never when the camera is directly on them all other sounds are fine it's just the voices. I can get voices if I switch the system to virtual surround but it sounds awful.

Does anyone have an audio file that plays each speaker separately so i can test my audio. I have used the surround system's built in test and everything sounds fine.

Additionally a nice feature for xbmc would be an audio test that is built in.

EDIT: Just tested the mkv on a windows machines with VLC and the audio is fine. So it must be something todo with xbmc or my surround setup.

Drop down to a terminal or console and run speaker-test.

Sorry to state the obvious, but you have also set xbmc to output 3.1 and enabled increase volume when downmixing?

will do.

I'll need to check

I see no option to have 3.1 just to down mix

If I down mix will that not mean i lose the center speaker and subwoofer?

Down mixing does solve the problem though.

How are you connected for sound? Optical to the receiver?

In that case downmixing won't make it stereo- it will just passthrough the AC3 track.

Yes it's optical out but I cannot use passthrough.

cool thanks

Pvt_Ryan Wrote:Yes it's optical out but I cannot use passthrough.

cool thanks

So the XBMC box WON'T passthrough? Or your equipment doesn't support passthrough? I am confused.

I think the equip doesn't support it but tbh I am not sure.

Amusingly although I run a global network, A/V equipment baffles me.

Pvt_Ryan Wrote:I think the equip doesn't support it but tbh I am not sure.

If your equipment has an optical in port, then it AT LEAST supports AC3 (also known as "5.1 Dolby Digital") audio.

In fact, that is how you get surround sound to work. You use the digital settings in XBMC to passthrough the AC3/DTS track from the file you are trying to play.

Only other way is HDMI (which is even harder) and individual analoge outputs (which is certainly not the best way to do it).