[madmax2]

To simplify the matter ..... yes, the issue is that there are banned addons mentioned in your log. Normally, threads are being closed without a second thought because of that. To prevent this, remove your addons, create a new debug log and people will try to help.

Okay thanks

Gracus should have said that in the first place..

It was a confusing post made by Gracus without any explanations

when all I did was followed the log guidelines and uploaded the requested files

Also in the log guidelines
nothing mention about not allowing banned addons in the log..
only thing it said was to remove sensitive info like passwords etc..

If it is a rule requirement then they should put that in the log guidelines

BTW can I censor any mention of the addons in the log instead?
I have removed all words about any banned addons in my new log.

[jac55]

I remain confused and I confess I am not very good at interpreting log files. But I am interested in any audio problems that Kodi 17 exhibits before I consider updating.

For people to offer help they need to be certain that your problem persists with a clean Kodi install. The point is that the banned add-ons could be messing up areas of Kodi in an unexpected way. So just removing (uninstalling) those banned add-ons may not undo the harm caused at installation time. It is certain that just removing mention of banned add-ons from a log file is not going to help to identify the source of the problem.

If the problem persists with a clean install, then a debug log file from that clean install may help to identify the problem.

[jjd-uk]

New log

http://pastebin.com/tyyLxN5i

The movie you are playing does not have DTS audio, it has AAC which is not a passthrough format as it decodes to PCM, and since SPDIF can only do 2 channel PCM this is why you only see that on your AVR.

If you wish to retain the 5.1 format for AAC audio then you need to transcode the audio to AC3 so it can fit in the SPDIF link, to do this make sure both:

Dolby Digital (AC3) capable receiver
Enable Dolby Digital transcoding

are selected in the Audio settings.

[madmax2]

New log

http://pastebin.com/tyyLxN5i

The movie you are playing does not have DTS audio, it has AAC which is not a passthrough format as it decodes to PCM, and since SPDIF can only do 2 channel PCM this is why you only see that on your AVR.

If you wish to retain the 5.1 format for AAC audio then you need to transcode the audio to AC3 so it can fit in the SPDIF link, to do this make sure both:

Dolby Digital (AC3) capable receiver
Enable Dolby Digital transcoding

are selected in the Audio settings.

No, as I said my other posts

I have tested this movie on Kodi and on external media player = potplayer..

I can clearly see the DTS logo and 5.1 channel when I used
potplayer with audio > output mode > SPDIF DTS

Can you explain this?

Is potplayer re-encoding / transcoding AAC to DTS ?

If this is the case, why is Kodi not able to do this? and only doing it by AC3?
and why is potplayer able to send the transcoded audio file via SPDIF optical to my AV receiver and it shows DTS logo

How is this possible if SPDIF is limited to PCM 2 channels?

Also in the Kodi metadata it shows the movie is 5.1 channel.
And on my receiver it is clearly show DTS + 5.1 channel logos

===

IF AAC is not is pass through format then which audio codec is?


So optical out and coaxial SPDIF can only do 2 channel uncompressed PCM, so what audio format does it need, to do 5.1 channel via SPDIF optical out?

Or is it only possible by HDMI?

====
Just to be clear, this movie uses AAC audio which does have 5.1 channels?
but it can't output the 5.1 audio using SPDIF optical out because SPDIF only supports 2 channel uncompressed PCM or compressed 5.1/7.1 DTS.

So..

I need to transcode the audio AAC to AC3 first, which would give me 5.1 channel but it is dolby digital rather than DTS?

OR
I need to transcode AAC 5.1 to DTS first, but kodi does not current have this feature..only potplayer..

OR
I need to use HDMI, which would allow AAC 5.1 to passthrough the HDMI cable to the AV receiver as 5.1..

Is this correct?

===

IF this is the case, why is kodi not implement a similiar option to transcode to DTS first?


===
Is there much difference in sound quality between DTS 5.1 and AC3 transcoded 5.1?

===

From what I have been just reading
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S/PDIF

"S/PDIF can carry two channels of uncompressed PCM audio or compressed 5.1/7.1 surround sound (such as DTS audio codec)"

So SPDIF can carry 5.1 DTS but it must be transcoded / compressed DTS, which Kodi does not currently support as a feature (only transcoded /compressed AC3 is available) while
potplayer does support transcoded / compressed DTS

So the question is..

Why does kodi not have such a feature to transcoded to compressed DTS and only transcode AC3?

Is there any difference in terms of quality between transcoded / compressed DTS and transcoded / compressed AC3?

[jjd-uk]

2 channel PCM is how the raw bandwidth of an SPDIF is expressed, as this is the amount of uncompressed PCM audio it can pass.

Dolby Digital & DTS are compressed formats, so even with 5.1 (6 channels) the audio is still smaller in bandwidth than that required for uncompressed 2 channel PCM.

So that Wolverine movie is AAC 5.1 and decodes to PCM 5.1 which won't fit down the SPDIF, in order to send the 5.1 the audio must be transcoded to an encoded (compressed) format such as Dolby Digital or DTS.

[jjd-uk]

As for why potplayer sends DTS I've no idea, perhaps you've got DTS Connect drivers on your system that takes care of audio from potplayer.

[madmax2]

2 channel PCM is how the raw bandwidth of an SPDIF is expressed, as this is the amount of uncompressed PCM audio it can pass.

Dolby Digital & DTS are compressed formats, so even with 5.1 (6 channels) the audio is still smaller in bandwidth than that required for uncompressed 2 channel PCM.

So that Wolverine movie is AAC 5.1 and decodes to PCM 5.1 which won't fit down the SPDIF, in order to send the 5.1 the audio must be transcoded to an encoded (compressed) format such as Dolby Digital or DTS.

Will aac 5.1 passthrough if I used HDMI cable instead of SPDIF optical out?

So this is essentially a bandwidth problem with regards to SPDIF only able to fit uncompressed PCM 2 channel or a compressed 5.1 DTS through its cable / optical out?

So the solution is ..
Since AAC 5.1 will by default decode to PCM 5.1, I need to first get Kodi to

-transcode to AC3 5.1 before it can fit on SPDIF optical out cable

OR
-get Potplayer to transcode AAC 5.1 to DTS 5.1

OR
-use HDMI cable


=====

I have just checked Potplayer settings
and it looks like from the setting it is doing this

Audio > Output mode > SPDIF after DTS re-encoding

It looks like potplayer is able to re-encode to DTS while kodi does not have this feature...

So why Kodi does not have a feature to re-encode to DTS, but only re-encode to AC3...

Is there a difference in quality between DTS and AC3?

From my own testing, DTS sounds alot more louder...

[jjd-uk]

So the solution is ..
Since AAC 5.1 will by default decode to PCM 5.1, I need to first get Kodi to

-transcode to AC3 5.1 before it can fit on SPDIF optical out cable

Yes

OR
-use HDMI cable

Maybe

If connecting direct to AVR then in all likelyhood this is yes.

However just because a device has HDMI does not automatically mean it supports more than 2.0, for example a lot of TV's won't. When it comes to AVR's all proper ones should support 7.1 however you do get some AVR's that are part of an all-in-one bundle that may not.

[madmax2]

So the solution is ..
Since AAC 5.1 will by default decode to PCM 5.1, I need to first get Kodi to

-transcode to AC3 5.1 before it can fit on SPDIF optical out cable

Yes

OR
-use HDMI cable

Maybe

If connecting direct to AVR then in all likelyhood this is yes.

However just because a device has HDMI does not automatically mean it supports more than 2.0, for example a lot of TV's won't. When it comes to AVR's all proper ones should support 7.1 however you do get some AVR's that are part of an all-in-one bundle that may not.

Unfortunately my AV receiver is quite old and only has TOSLINK SPDIF, no HDMI, so I am only able to use this cable..

What about the other questions..

Why Kodi has no feature to transcode to DTS, only transcode to AC3?

From own experience, DTS sounds much more louder and maybe more crispier/sharper than AC3...

Is there much difference between DTS and AC3 in terms of quality, data size etc?

[jjd-uk]

No difference at all in terms of quality as any re-encoding method can't put back what wasn't there in the first place, although DTS does have a tendency to louder thus giving the illusion of sometimes being better, but that's usually only a difference in the reference volume level being used by the encoder, turn up the volume of AC3 and it should be exactly the same.

[nickr]

Afaik there is no open source DTS encoder so Kodi cannot transcode to DTS.

Even over HDMI AAC 5.1 will not pass through because avrs do not accept AAC over HDMI.

[scott967]

I suppose you can go over to av forums and argue back and forth about DTS vs AC3 and the various higher level codecs. But in this case you are starting with AAC which in itself is a lossy compression, so you are uncompressing this and then transcoding into AC3 or DTS. Have no idea which is "better" but ISTM any transcoding is going to be a compromise so it is already degraded.

scott s.
.

[madmax2]

Afaik there is no open source DTS encoder so Kodi cannot transcode to DTS.

Even over HDMI AAC 5.1 will not pass through because avrs do not accept AAC over HDMI.

Have a look at potplayer

It can do SPDIF after re-encode to DTS...

Maybe you can look at what they are using, cos I don't think potplayer is using any commercial DTS encoders..

From this screenshot I think it uses FFmpegMinium64.dll or FFmpeg Decoder..


It also shows other supported codecs like
-OpenCodecUnity64.dll,
-FFmpeg64.dll

i think these are free open source codec?




It would cool if Kodi was able to transcode to DTS using this same codec, is it possible to implement or not?

Is there any plans to implement
-transcode to DTS

==
So are you saying even if I used HDMI cable it will not output AAC 5.1 channels passthrough?
What is avrs ?

So how are people getting 5.1 channels with AAC 5.1?

Is the only way to get AAC 5.1 is to transcode / re encode to DTS / AC3 first?

Is the reason why many movie files used AAC 5.1 is because the compression better (ie smaller file size) than DTS / AC3?

AAC 5.1/ 6 channel is a very popular audio codec used in many movie files nowadays..
so why is it so hard to get 5.1 channels from it...

[nickr]

No, AAC will get decoded to 6 channel PCM and sent over HDMI. AVR=amplifier. There are no known ones that decode AAC.

potplayer does not appear to be open source.

AAC 5.1/ 6 channel is a very popular audio codec used in many movie files nowadays.

Only if you are downloading pirated material.

so why is it so hard to get 5.1 channels from it

It's not, you have the answers.

[madmax2]

No, AAC will get decoded to 6 channel PCM and sent over HDMI. AVR=amplifier. There are no known ones that decode AAC.

potplayer does not appear to be open source.

AAC 5.1/ 6 channel is a very popular audio codec used in many movie files nowadays.

Only if you are downloading pirated material.

so why is it so hard to get 5.1 channels from it

It's not, you have the answers.

According to this
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Audio_Coding

AAC is the default or standard audio format for YouTube, iPhone, iPod, iPad, Nintendo DSi, Nintendo 3DS, iTunes, DivX Plus Web Player and PlayStation 3. It is supported on PlayStation Vita, Wii (with the Photo Channel 1.1 update installed), Sony Walkman MP3 series and later, Android and BlackBerry..

I think Apple also uses this format in iTunes + ipod etc for their movies and music..

===

Can kodi use these codecs to transcode to DTS?
I think they are open source and used by potplayer?

-FFmpegMinium64.dll or FFmpeg Decoder..
-OpenCodecUnity64.dll,
-FFmpeg64.dll