carlsberg Wrote:isnt there an easy way for this .. im kinda a noob in lunix :S
I mean like an ready to run patch ?

alanwww1 Wrote:PART 3: SETTING UP THE SYSTEM THE PULSEAUDIO WAY


Now we load some custom pulseaudio config files to define hw:0,3 (your hdmi device) as the default hw sink. Here we also define the channel numbers and channel order. We can do it with the default.pa file.

Code:

wget http://pastebin.com/pastebin.php?dl=f14a2664c -O ~/.pulse/default.pa
dos2unix ~/.pulse/default.pa

You can tunde your setup changing this line in ~/.pulse/default.pa file

Code:

load-module module-alsa-sink device=hw:0,3 channels=6 channel_map=front-left,front-right,front-center,lfe,rear-left,rear-right

Now we set the default rate to 176400hz (It is a multiple of 44100 CD standard), 32bits, 6 channels, we set it in the daemon.conf file.

Code:

wget http://pastebin.com/pastebin.php?dl=f34e8526f -O ~/.pulse/daemon.conf
dos2unix ~/.pulse/daemon.conf

You can tune your setup by changing these lines in ~/.pulse/deemon.conf file.

Code:

default-sample-format = s32le
default-sample-rate = 176400
default-sample-channels = 6
; resample-method = src-sinc-medium-quality

With the last line uncommented you can set a higher quality default resampler. After that pulseaudio will start using a little bit more cpu for software mixing.
The available sampler options are (by man pulse-daemon.conf)

Code:

src-sinc-best-quality,  src-sinc-medium-quality,  src-sinc-fastest,  src-zero-order-hold,  src-linear, trivial, speex-float-N, speex-fixed-N, ffmpeg

Make a reboot with sudo reboot.

Now we set up Gnome to use pulseaudio. Do it like this:




XBMC SETUP PULSEAUDIO WAY

Setting up xbmc for pulseaudio is pretty easy. We turn off crossfading for now, because there is a slight stuttering in sound while crossfading. If anyone can help what is the cause we could reenable this feature.


Note that with pulseaudio we loose passthrough as it is not supported yet by pulseaudio. But as we have multichannel lpcm sound we can just decode the streams and pass it in lpcm format to the receiver.

We can do a little testing if xbmc really uses pulseaudio nativly or not. Install pulse audio volume control utility.

Code:

sudo apt-get install pavucontrol

Run the program from main menu and open xbmc minimalized (press alt+q after start)
Note that while it is playing GUI sounds it is using the Alsa-plugin module.

Notice that i have also run a totem session which was also playing music. Software mixing works great.

If you start playing a music tracks with xbmc it should appear like this.

This means xbmc nativly using pulseaudio not through an alsa plugin rerouted to pulse.

This utility is great because you can also tune channel volume levels with it:


That's it we are done. I have to tell that sometimes specially when a new stream starts i can hear a very slight stuttering in sound. This settles as thestream continues. I'd very much appriciate if someone could help me to solve this little glitch in it.

REVERT CHANGES FROM PULSEAUDIO WAY
If you would like to revert back what we've don just do it as follows.

Code:

rm ~/.pulse/default.pa ~/.pulse/daemon.conf /etc/asound.conf

coalfield Wrote:[quote=carlsberg]Should this also work with xbmclive installed to HD ?
Been trying it but it dont seem to work , i used the Alsa way .
And i have a Nvidia ion mini pc .[/QUOTE

I tried it on 9.11 Live and its killed my machine oh dear... reinstall time

ERROR is:

'XBMC needs hardwareb accelerated OpenGL rendering. Install an appropriate graphics driver...'

Shank Wrote:First thanks for this guide.

I seem to have one issue.

Running testfiles (.mkv) mapping of channels seem messed up.

6 channel DTS works fine. All speakers ok.

6 channel AAC no sound in center channel

6 channel AC3 no sound in center channel

Any Pointers what could be wrong?