[thashiznit2003]

Ok, first off, I built a computer just to put XBMC on it. I have a Celeron processor on an ASUS P8H61-I R2.0 motherboard, with 4GB of RAM, and it also has an on-board HDMI port, which I am using for both video and audio. This signal goes from the motherboard into my Onkyo HT-R590 receiver over HDMI, then HDMI out to my LG HDTV. I am running XBMCbuntu Eden, so version 11.

Now the fun part:

I am experiencing an audio delay of about 2 seconds any time I start (or play from being paused) any movie or TV show on xbmc. After 2 seconds, the receiver seems to 'kick on,' and on the receiver's front panel, it displays: "HDMI" and "PCM." These are not displayed when there is nothing playing. Once audio starts, there is no issue with lip-syncing or anything. I also cannot get any menu sounds to be output over HDMI. I hooked up a set of analog speakers to the computer's front panel port, and the menu sounds CAN come out of there, but the analogs cannot play any video's audio.

This issue is frustrating, because I also have an AppleTV2 jailbroken with XBMC on it, and it does NOT have any audio issues, leading me to believe it is software based. The AppleTV is also going through my Onkyo receiver, just like the computer.
I only "upgraded" to XBMCbuntu because I was tired of my AppleTV crashing all the time, and the poor performance of XBMC on it.

I have ssh access to XBMCbuntu from my mac, with full root privileges available, but I am just not good with linux, and can't operate Vi to save my life, in order to change settings via the terminal in the configuration files.

I have googled this issue already, and can't find anything that works, out of the very few results that mirror this issue. All I want is the audio to not have the 2 second delay. I can live without menu sounds, but if someone knows how to make those work too, it would be nice.

Now to the settings:

Audio Output: HDMI Speaker configuration: 7.1 Dolby capable receiver: yes DTS capable receiver: yes Audio output device: hdmi (ALSA) Passthrough output device: hdmi(ALSA)

hdmi(ALSA) is the only one that produces any audio at all out of all the options I have for those two settings. The other settings simply say they can't initialize the audio device.

If it helps, I have played with the Alsamixer during SSHing to the box, and found that the Input called "S/PDIF 1" is the one that has all the audio for videos. However, I can only mute/unmute that setting, no volume control.

One theory is that there needs to be silence playing through the receiver, until a video file is started, so that it doesn't have to 'kick on.' I have no idea how to do this, and as I said, the help forums for this problem are not suited for linux noobs.

So, if someone can help me get audio working correctly, without the 2-second delay, it would be very appreciated.

[nickr]

There is a setting in advancedsettings.xml called streamsilence - this does what you need I think.

If ssh'ing in try not to use vi - it is hard until you learn it. Try nano -w (if nano is not installed, try

Code:

sudo apt-get install nano

[wsnipex]

Streamsilence is Frodo only.

[thashiznit2003]

Streamsilence is there in Eden, but it doesn't seem to work. Thanks for telling me about nano, though, that is MUCH better to operate than vi. Anyway, does anyone have any other suggestions?

[negge]

Try putting your receiver into something else than "Direct" mode (usually Direct is the one that makes it click every time you start playing something). If that doesn't help I think you need to try Frodo with the streamsilence option.

[thashiznit2003]

Ok, I installed Frodo RC3 xbmcbuntu, changed the streamsilence setting to 1(true), and still have the same problem. If it helped at all, it only gave me an extra second, so I now lose only the first 1 second, instead of the first 2. But, I can't be sure it worked at all. If I were to venture a guess, I would say that XBMC doesn't have the ability to merge 2 audio streams into one. It should be playing silence, and the receiver does appear to have the PCM indicator lit up at all times now, but when I start the video file, it has to stop the "silence" and start playing the video's audio track, which causes the receiver to perceive a loss of signal, then re-acquisition of signal. The PCM indicator on the receiver does flash as well, when I start the video file.

I have also tried all the audio settings of the receiver itself, like panoramic, dolby prologic, etc, with movie, game, and music settings, and they all do the same thing, but a few of them seem to "catch" on quicker, meaning I get that extra second of audio that I didn't get before.

This feels like the answer is right under my nose, but I just can't find it out. I know DVD players, at least the good ones, don't have this problem. And again, XBMC on the AppleTV 2 didn't have this problem, either.

Anyway, let me know if you have any other suggestions.


Thanks

[DDDamian]

streamsilence is pretty well only Windows now.

[Carrot Cruncher]

i'd love to see a solution to this for xbmc on linux. at the moment i'm using this work around :

http://www.tolaris.com/2011/07/03/solvin...-and-hdmi/

[fritsch]

@carrot Cruncher: This does help?

Are you really sure, you know what you are doing there? This workaround will in every case disable raw audio for you, as the sink gets blocked.

[Carrot Cruncher]

i'll be honest and say i don't really understand the technicalities behind it, all i know is i implemented it ages ago when i first hit the problem and it resolved the issue for me. If i take it out i get the 2 second delay at the start of any playback.

[devkid]

I have this problem too. For me it behaves like this:

When I idle in the XBMC menu the HDMI audio seems to stay enabled (receiver audio display says "turned on"). Then once I hit a button on the XBMC remote the audio suddenly gets turned off for about 2 seconds (according to the receiver display). Also I dont hear the menu click sound which should occur due to the button hit.

Is it supposed to work that way? For me it seems that instead of HDMI audio gets disabled after a while of idle it actually gets disabled as soon as you push a button after while of idle. I am on OpenELEC 3.0 x64-ION btw.

I will now go and try to disable that advsetting as a workaround.