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hugo57 · 2016-12-24, 09:26

Have several DTS music albums with tracks in WavPack format for tagging convenience. Yesterday noticed that they are not playing properly, all I hear is hiss... Confused

This was surely working OK in Jarvis and probably in early Krypton betas too. Currently using beta 7. Tried reinstalling previous betas (down to beta 3) to no avail, still just hiss.

Anybody else having the same problem?

HeresJohnny · 2016-12-25, 11:48

This could have many reasons. As soon as the DTS stream is altered on its way to the decoder, it will fail. Assuming wavpack is even a valid container - up until now I thought only WAV-DTS would be properly detected - I would start by checking if volume is at 100% and all DSP are disabled.

hugo57 · 2016-12-26, 08:05

Hi Johnny, thanks for your reply. But as I mentioned in my post, this was working properly in Jarvis and there are no changes in my setup except for now using Krypton betas. Sound is output via HDMI to the AVR which is set to Pure Direct. Never used DSP in Kodi.

The same issue happened years ago, can't remember now with which version, and it got fixed in the next release. Hope I'm still in time to have this fixed in Krypton... Wink

**fritsch** · 2016-12-27, 12:17

No Debug Log no issue.

**DaveBlake** · 2016-12-27, 12:22

Hugo also worth discovering if it worked in v17 beta 1 or 2, or has never worked in Krypton. If you want a fix in Krypton them provide as much info as you can.

hugo57 · 2017-01-02, 13:05

Hi Guys,

Sorry for the commotion, I can confirm that DTS music playback is actually WORKING in Krypton with audio output set to WASAPI. Which, I think, is kind of normal.

I have always used Kodi with this setting, for many years, as it gives a cleaner sound. But it sometimes gets reset to DIRECTSOUND, probably when installing an update. Could not figure out exactly. This is what happened when I installed Beta 7 - and I did not notice at the time... Confused

Changing the output back to WASAPI solved the problem. Interestingly the reset did not happen when I installed RC2 this morning and the playback is still OK.

For reference find two log files here (https://www.dropbox.com/s/n73s9of4oqhnkk...D.log?dl=0) and here (https://www.dropbox.com/s/82o7mepcvt1mnf...I.log?dl=0)

I also wanted to say that overall I am VERY HAPPY with the sound of Krypton, I find it better than what came out of Jarvis (no changes in my equipment). Especially the low end feels much meatier. Thank you very much for this!!

**fritsch** · 2017-01-02, 13:28

May I ask how you added this DTS data into the wv containers? From the logfile you can be really lucky that it works at all. But the very moment you press "-" on your keyboard you will have a big issue, e.g. get only noise out of it. Can you verify that?

**jjd-uk** · 2017-01-02, 13:35

Also if you have some time could you post an example file, as although all is ok this time it's always good for us to have samples we can use to sanity check in order to make sure no regressions occur.

**fritsch** · 2017-01-02, 13:56

We simply don't support DTS in .wv files - from the log it's decoded "blindly" and depending on the machine (sink output format, resampling <- "Optimized" or volume) you will hear a whole lot of noise. It is nothing that I even want to support, as it is a huge PITA. Just use dts in .wav and fine.

FernetMenta · 2017-01-02, 18:27

(2017-01-02, 13:56)fritsch Wrote: We simply don't support DTS in .wv files

That is not correct. The extension of the file dos not matter.

**fritsch** · (This post was last modified: 2017-01-02, 18:49 by fritsch.)

Please have a look at the log. ffmpeg detects: "ws" format, decodes it and we play it with the pcm device. That's why I asked how he added the DTS stuff into it.

Soli · (This post was last modified: 2017-01-02, 19:06 by Soli.)

AVR receivers will look for the DTS signature in the LSB area of the pcm stream. They will ignore that the bitstream flag of the original S/Pdif stream is "off", if the DTS signature is detected in the pcm stream itself. I guess a version of this is also valid for HDMI even though the pcm frames are sent in chunks.

So it doesn't matter if Kodi supports DTS or not (ie don't turn on the bitstream flag), as long as the sound stream is bitperfect the AVR will probably decode it anyways.

**fritsch** · 2017-01-02, 19:08

@Soli: What about internal processing? Volume or the OS doing mixing, cause it assumes it is just normal whatever PCM content?

It highly matters that a playback programm does NOT touch any data ... if the stuff it transmits is passthrough. Nothing of the stuff you say will survive an internal volume on the decoded float data.

**fritsch** · 2017-01-02, 19:10

Quite easy: Get a file from him and press "-" on the kodi volume control or reduce the kodi volume before playback ... (turn down the speakers before doing that), cause you are greeted with random noise.

Soli · 2017-01-02, 19:52

(2017-01-02, 19:08)fritsch Wrote: @Soli: What about internal processing? Volume or the OS doing mixing, cause it assumes it is just normal whatever PCM content?

It highly matters that a playback programm does NOT touch any data ... if the stuff it transmits is passthrough. Nothing of the stuff you say will survive an internal volume on the decoded float data.

Yes, basically you will get DTS audio without "passthrough", but only because AVR receivers looks at the pcm stream itself (because S/Pdif doesn't tell anything about the format, only if it is a bitstream or pcm). So yeah, as long as Kodi and Windows volume is at max and you use wasapi, or alsa and not pulse, then you might get DTS from 2 channel pcm files, which can be wv, wav or flac, etc. This is how I understand it, without having any deep knowledge of Kodi subsystem Smile

Random noise from raw dts it at least -12db down, so your speakers should be good! But yeah, I can see lots of scenarios that the "fake passthrough" will lead to unpleasantness..