2013-01-24, 14:43
Following on from this I'd go further
Problem: Choppy video and no audio.
When setting Audio Output to the Optical/coax or HDMI options all the capable receiver passthrough items are enabled (apart from AAC capable receiver it seems), however not all systems will support the passthrough of some of the encoded formats such as DTS. This mismatch between what is supported at the OS/driver level and what is enabled in XBMC causes video & audio playback problems that causes much confusion for new or inexperienced users. There has been many occassions where I've had to talk users through finding out what their system supports and then disabling the "capable receiver" items that their av setup does not support.
Solution: In nearly all the cases where choppy video and no audio is experienced, this can be solved by setting Audio Output to Analog so that XBMC sends all audio as PCM with encoded formats such as DTS being decoded by XBMC where necessary. Since XBMC doing the decoding for encoded formats like DTS offers the greatest & simplest compatibility for users then I would suggest that the quick win is that XBMC by default for both the Optical/coax and HDMI options for Audio Output should have all the capable receiver passthrough items disabled. Forcing user to enable the capable receiver items for passthrough if they want to bitstream means they are more likely to investigtate what their system supports or only be touched by experience users, it also has the benefit of the users more likely having an initially working setup thus if they enable any of those items then experience problems then it should hopefully be obvious to them they need to be disabled again.
Perhaps in the long term the enumeration of the audio devices by XBMC can be used to set the defaults for the capable receiver passthrough items.
Hope that all makes sense.
Problem: Choppy video and no audio.
When setting Audio Output to the Optical/coax or HDMI options all the capable receiver passthrough items are enabled (apart from AAC capable receiver it seems), however not all systems will support the passthrough of some of the encoded formats such as DTS. This mismatch between what is supported at the OS/driver level and what is enabled in XBMC causes video & audio playback problems that causes much confusion for new or inexperienced users. There has been many occassions where I've had to talk users through finding out what their system supports and then disabling the "capable receiver" items that their av setup does not support.
Solution: In nearly all the cases where choppy video and no audio is experienced, this can be solved by setting Audio Output to Analog so that XBMC sends all audio as PCM with encoded formats such as DTS being decoded by XBMC where necessary. Since XBMC doing the decoding for encoded formats like DTS offers the greatest & simplest compatibility for users then I would suggest that the quick win is that XBMC by default for both the Optical/coax and HDMI options for Audio Output should have all the capable receiver passthrough items disabled. Forcing user to enable the capable receiver items for passthrough if they want to bitstream means they are more likely to investigtate what their system supports or only be touched by experience users, it also has the benefit of the users more likely having an initially working setup thus if they enable any of those items then experience problems then it should hopefully be obvious to them they need to be disabled again.
Perhaps in the long term the enumeration of the audio devices by XBMC can be used to set the defaults for the capable receiver passthrough items.
Hope that all makes sense.
