[LarsM]

Hi and thank you for a lot of good with XBMC/Kodi, but:

There have been some problems with Audio and Video for the Mac version from when I first started with version 13.x, it got worse with all test builds of version 14, it is just as bad with 14.1 and now with 14.2 it is all over the place when it attempt to syncs. Sometimes it works but it is the norm that it don't. I have 4 Macs that all has the same issue with audio sync running last Mavericks and all versions of Mac OS X 10.10 up to a legally obtained Developer version of 10.10.3 with Kodi, especially any DTS format.

I am truly grateful for your hard work but this is getting like a bad joke. How on earth can you call any version stable with this flaw and why has it not been fixed yet? I know you will answer that it will be fixed in version 15 like I read about you fixing it in 14, but nothing! And some of you come across as arrogant when these topics come up. It does not encourage donations..
And why is DTS HD MA 7.1 still reported as 5.1. I let Kodi do the job and I do get a real 7.1 DTS MA HD (Yes, HD sound works just fine on Mac, at least with LPCM!) on my receiver using LPCM (4.3.1) confirmed with DTS MA 7.1 test videos, so that is also a bug in "release/stable" Kodi versions. Why is it so hard to update the GUI to report a correct number of channels with DTS MA when Dolby True HD 7.1 is displayed correctly in the GUI?

I have set aside a for me a big donation, but you will not get it until the Mac OS X audio & video syncs correctly.

Kodi is the best and most versatile Media Center out there, so: Keep up the good work but please fix broken code before releasing it or calling it stable/final.

[Memphiz]

Ehrm - hard to get any usefull information out of your rant tbh. Could you be so kind and make a proper report of your problem in the osx subforum so i can take a look at it? I need to know your exact setup (used devices, used audio hardware, a debug log (wiki) and your audio settings inside kodi). Also there will be no bugfree release ever. The fact that it gets worse for you from version to version doesn't make it a general problem.

The overall feedback about the latest releases was not as bad as your post suggests. Also you should keep your money for sure. This really goes into a direction like extortion. I will see if i can help you in a dedicated thread but your donation has nothing to do with it. For the 7.1 cosmetics issue - bug ffmpeg that they provide the needed info. (there are threads about that problem and if you would read it you would already know our standpoint on that issue).

[LarsM]

Ehrm - hard to get any usefull information out of your rant tbh. Could you be so kind and make a proper report of your problem in the osx subforum so i can take a look at it? I need to know your exact setup (used devices, used audio hardware, a debug log (wiki) and your audio settings inside kodi). Also there will be no bugfree release ever. The fact that it gets worse for you from version to version doesn't make it a general problem.

The overall feedback about the latest releases was not as bad as your post suggests. Also you should keep your money for sure. This really goes into a direction like extortion. I will see if i can help you in a dedicated thread but your donation has nothing to do with it. For the 7.1 cosmetics issue - bug ffmpeg that they provide the needed info. (there are threads about that problem and if you would read it you would already know our standpoint on that issue).

I am having trouble understanding that you call this rant. It was not my intention. I am merely one of many having this problem and had hoped that the developers of Kodi took a good look at it as reported by others for a long time, but 90% of users does what I did, not writing in the forum and hoping for a fix that newer came.
I actually love Kodi and the people behind this and did make a point of mentioning it in my post and there was no irony behind it. If you call a widespread (read the many forums about it) problem and a plee from users to fix it ranting, that is all on you. As to keeping my donation for now until the sync problem is fixed IS NOT an attempt of extortion and an insult for me but that seems to be the norm for a few of you that comments reports of Kodi not being perfect, but I don't demand that it is. As a Mac OS and iOS developer, I know very well that software newer get truly bug free no matter how many people and recourses is put into it, but calling a complain of problem with AV sync ranting is uncalled for and I expect an apology for hinting that I'm holding back donations as an extortion.
It's like buying a TV with dialog (lip sync) 1-3 seconds after or before the picture and being told that it will be fixed in a future firmware update, so live it and stop komplaining. Would you live with it?

Yes, I know it is free to download and use Kodi and that some of you take offence if users states a problem with Kodi and still no irony: I wish us, the users, had to buy or subscribe for Kodi. It is for sure worth it and despite the obvious flaw with sync on Mac, competitors doesn't even come close to Kodi, so I will continue using it despite having to start and stop videos until Kodi hopefully gets the sync working. I am not talking about milliseconds here, but sometimes several seconds out of sync.

This is NOT ranting and I have been reading about it for a long time in the forums and changed settings 4-5 times each time a non working "solution" is mentioned by Kody moderators to sort out any settings that might be wrong and is futile. It is a software problem. I have two Quad Core i7 Macs with the same problems, so it is not a matter of the speed of the computer as I suspected at first running it on a late 2012 Core i5 Mac mini fully loaded with maxed out memory 16GB and running from a fast SSD Drive. DTS HD MA is not that critical, so I can easily wait for ffmpeg to join the new decade in software coding.

I can and are willing to send you logs and description of any equipment I have tested it on, but I am frankly surprised that this came as news to you, so again: Read your own forum from other Mac users with the exact same problem. If you still need a full description of testing Kodi with 4 different versions of Mac OS, I will send it to you as soon as I have time to do it in between helping customers with both hardware and software problems I troubleshoot to get bugs out of their Macs with a 100% success rate so far for more than 20 years.

And again: Charge something for Kodi so that some of you don't get into a frontal attack on loyal users that is willing to pay for a great media center so that reporting bugs that never has been fixed in my little over 18 months using XBMC and Kodi does not lead to an arrogant reply that seems to be a norm. I bet the harassment from some of you would stop or at least be reduced and taken seriously when we report bugs that should be fixed during alpha, beta and release candidates if we pay for it. It is worth paying for and that might speed up fixing bugs like this that users has reported since XBMC 13. There has been other Audio problems before that was fixed after a long time waiting for Kody to reach a 13-14 release, but why wait and why the freeze of features? I suspect that many have jumped over to the crappy Plex thing that at least manages to sync correctly, but Kodi fixes happen with delay after delay and "wait for next version" and still no joy. I am happy to report that version 14.2 does not slow down anymore when playing video with a refresh rate of 23.97 / 24 / 30 frames/s.

Just a repeat in case you did not get it: No, I was not ranting, just fead up trying to solve it and reading about the same problem it in your forums with an abundance of the moderators taking users seriously and waiting for a fix that was promised but has not been done so far. A media center with sync problem is not trivial. I would never consider holding back donations to force you to do anything. I am just not willing to donate with a major bug in Kodi. Got it?

[jjd-uk]

And why is DTS HD MA 7.1 still reported as 5.1. I let Kodi do the job and I do get a real 7.1 DTS MA HD (Yes, HD sound works just fine on Mac, at least with LPCM!) on my receiver using LPCM (4.3.1) confirmed with DTS MA 7.1 test videos, so that is also a bug in "release/stable" Kodi versions. Why is it so hard to update the GUI to report a correct number of channels with DTS MA when Dolby True HD 7.1 is displayed correctly in the GUI?

I have set aside a for me a big donation, but you will not get it until the Mac OS X audio & video syncs correctly.

Kodi is the best and most versatile Media Center out there, so: Keep up the good work but please fix broken code before releasing it or calling it stable/final.

Off topic for here but here's a reply anyway.

I'm not sure how you getting LPCM 7.1 from DTS-HD MA as Kodi can only provide LPCM 5.1 from DTS Core.

We use the ffmpeg library for video playback and it reports the media file details for GUI display, however in order for ffmpeg to do this accurately it must be able to decode the media stream. At the current time ffmpeg can only decode the 5.1 DTS Core part of DTS-HD MA hence why the GUI reports 5.1, however in the case of TrueHD then ffmpeg can decode the full TrueHD 7.1 hence why that does report correctly. So to sum up, DTS-HD MA channel reporting will be fixed as soon as ffmpeg can decode the full DTS-HD MA 7.1.

[LarsM]

And why is DTS HD MA 7.1 still reported as 5.1. I let Kodi do the job and I do get a real 7.1 DTS MA HD (Yes, HD sound works just fine on Mac, at least with LPCM!) on my receiver using LPCM (4.3.1) confirmed with DTS MA 7.1 test videos, so that is also a bug in "release/stable" Kodi versions. Why is it so hard to update the GUI to report a correct number of channels with DTS MA when Dolby True HD 7.1 is displayed correctly in the GUI?

I have set aside a for me a big donation, but you will not get it until the Mac OS X audio & video syncs correctly.

Kodi is the best and most versatile Media Center out there, so: Keep up the good work but please fix broken code before releasing it or calling it stable/final.

Off topic for here but here's a reply anyway.

I'm not sure how you getting LPCM 7.1 from DTS-HD MA as Kodi can only provide LPCM 5.1 from DTS Core.

We use the ffmpeg library for video playback and it reports the media file details for GUI display, however in order for ffmpeg to do this accurately it must be able to decode the media stream. At the current time ffmpeg can only decode the 5.1 DTS Core part of DTS-HD MA hence why the GUI reports 5.1, however in the case of TrueHD then ffmpeg can decode the full TrueHD 7.1 hence why that does report correctly. So to sum up, DTS-HD MA channel reporting will be fixed as soon as ffmpeg can decode the full DTS-HD MA 7.1.

Thank you for the reply and explanation of DTS ffmpeg, but my Sony STR-DN1040 really is reproducing 7.1 and I don't use audio upscale in Kodi. The DTS-HD MA test videos direct 7 different sounds to a dedicated speaker and 7, not 5 of them each get a test sound that is different than the other sounds and when listening to it, there is nothing but silence in the other speakers so I can also rule out any up scaling from the receiver. This happened when I got the second Developer version of 10.10 from Apple. Mavericks was never able to give 7 separate channels out, so I frankly have no idea why this works with my setup, but it could be Mac OS X 10.10 Developer versions that Apple is writing new code for an might not be active in the Release versions. I almost exclusively use Devepor previews to report bugs to Apple.

[Martijn]

there's a difference between what ffmpeg can detect and what passthrough does.

note:
split posts from 14.2 test thread as they are not regressions

[jjd-uk]

Thank you for the reply and explanation of DTS ffmpeg, but my Sony STR-DN1040 really is reproducing 7.1 and I don't use audio upscale in Kodi. The DTS-HD MA test videos direct 7 different sounds to a dedicated speaker and 7, not 5 of them each get a test sound that is different than the other sounds and when listening to it, there is nothing but silence in the other speakers so I can also rule out any up scaling from the receiver. This happened when I got the second Developer version of 10.10 from Apple. Mavericks was never able to give 7 separate channels out, so I frankly have no idea why this works with my setup, but it could be Mac OS X 10.10 Developer versions that Apple is writing new code for an might not be active in the Release versions. I almost exclusively use Devepor previews to report bugs to Apple.

I'm not clear what you say you are getting on the AVR, so what does the AVR report, is it LPCM 7.1 or DTS-HD MA 7.1? as I don't see how either are possible?

LPCM 7.1 as previously explained requires decoding support for DTS-HD MA in ffmpeg, and currently it can only do the 5.1 DTS Core.

DTS-HD MA 7.1 passthrough/bitstreaming for decoding on an AVR requires support within OS-X, it was my understanding that no released version of OS-X currently supports sending (bitstreaming) DTS-HD MA to an AVR, unless the development releases are somehow different in this respect.

[LarsM]

I am 99% sure that I get 7.1 DTS- HD MA. My receiver report this on the receiver display:
Linear PCM [3/4.1 (48 KHz) ] and it sounds much better after I got the second (or third) development preview of Yosemite, so hopefully Apple is working with the audio HD formats and I think it will be in a release version sooner or later.
After reading your post, I installed the release version of 10.10.2 and the 7.1 or HD audio is not working via LPCM in that version, but it has worked in all the preview versions of 10.10.2 and also previews of 10.10.3 . It has never been reported in the release notes of the preview versions, but I hope it's just a matter of time. I have no issues with HD audio, but Apple might not think it is ready yet.
Just my theory of events that might come in a later Mac OS. I am too low in the "food chain" to know everything they are working on.

[jjd-uk]

Just realised the post from Memphiz didn't come across in the split from the other thread.

Please provide the information Memphiz has requested for your sync issues if you want progress towards gettings these fixed.

However bear in mind that you might have to show some patience, as although Memphiz is one of the most helpful guys on the Team, he is currently alone in looking at these type of issues for OS-X, so it's highly dependant on what free time he has to look at your issue, although I think another dev is due to get a Mac so he maybe getting some more help soon.

[Memphiz]

Yes my request for debug log and used hardware is still valid. We did bugfixes when it comes to vsync implementation of osx lately (which also plays a role in audio sync of course) and i need to know which setup exactly you are trying to work with (f.e. refresh rate adaption used, maybe even with combination of sync to display, paththrough or lpcm and so on).

I can assure you that i look into the forums on a daily basis and am reading mostly any of the threads in all platform forums. And when someone posts something like "your sync issues will be fixed in future versions" then i am sure the particular "sync issue" was fixed. The problem is that there are alot of different use cases (which manifest in different kodi settings and used hardware or audio/video chains) which will result in alot of different possible problems. Sure as a user you see "its out of sync". But from a dev POV we already fixed a couple of them (sadly your issue wasn't in there).

Also jmarshall and i rewrote the complete audio sink for osx and ios for gotham and i refactored and improved it for kodi. Its clear that the blog posts for those releases state something like "vastly improved audio support on osx". The fact that you don't see any improvements for your problems is sad for sure - but that doesn't mean that i am a lazy or something like that.

I also have at least 3 known audio issues in osx which manifest with studio audio equipment (mostly wrong channel mapping or samplerate issues). I asked the reporters to borrow me that equipment so i can fix the problem. It never happend (i understand that). But nobody should expect me to fix things in the blind. All i can do is try to reproduce and look into the code carefully. If neither of both reveals a bug i need to stear my time towards something else. This is no ignorance. Its just what this whole thingy makes it a hobby and not a dayjob (where 100% success rate might be required for sure).

I would like you to describe one exact use case where the out of sync issue is reproducable for you. This use case consists of:

1. Used audio hardware (mac, connection type, audio end device like avr and tv and how those are chained together)
2. Used audio settings in kodi (settings->system->audio)
3. Used video settings in kodi (settings->system->video)
4. Used video playback settings in kodi (settings->video->playbak and acceleration)
5. Used video material (container, resolution, videocodec, audiocodec)
6. Things that change the behavior (for example - does seeking cure the problem, does pausing cure the problem and so on).

For such a use case i would like to have a debug log (wiki) which just shows the issues (f.e. enable debugging in settings->system->debug, stop kodi, start kodi, play video which shows the problem, stop video, stop kodi -> upload the log to pastebin.com and put the link in here).

[LarsM]

I am sorry for the late response. I am currently a on an assignment troubleshooting and fixing some bugs for a company that is a 7 hours drive away and I probably won't return before Tuesday or Wednesday, but as soon as I am able, I will give you a full description of the 6 steps and more. I really appreciate your work even if I complained of an issue with Kodi. Just wanted to make sure that is clear and that I was not ranting og worse, holding back donation to speed things up.

I was not aware that you are handling this almost alone (another argument for charging a little for a major project like Kodi - I never get request from medium to big companies to provide software for free - they are willing and able to pay for software that is good and I suspect the same goes for the majority of Kodi users as well), but I am very aware that corrections in code can result in other errors, believe me. Even the thousands of coders Apple hires for a major upgrade or new release has as long as I can remember made some unintended troubles in other parts of the code and making other bugs to pop up and that is why I can make a decent living helping end users every time some update comes along and I suspect I will be busy until I drop dead and am sure that will be the case for generations to come.

I will post as soon as I am home again and have installed and tested it on my 4 Macs that I use to debug and troubleshoot in the same way as before to recreate the logs.

[Audiomixer]

Perhaps you could spend many less words talking about the irrelevant and just get to the point as to your exact problem, which, after reading your stuff, still escapes me. Have you tried disabling VDADecoding under hardware acceleration?

[albertbope]

Perhaps you could spend many less words talking about the irrelevant and just get to the point as to your exact problem, which, after reading your stuff, still escapes me. Have you tried disabling VDADecoding under hardware acceleration?

It worked for me!

[LarsM]

Audiomixer: I reserve right to use as many words I choose to both explain my issues and my background so the developers are aware that I am not a "newbie" to troubleshooting. If you don't like it, just don't read it is my advice to you.
To Memphis: I am swamped with work at the moment and feel bad I have not had the chance to send the logs yeat. It looked like I got a few days off until Apple decided to come out with a security update for 10.10.2 that effectively stopped way to many Macs from starting up with just a "do not enter sign" and someone has to fix it right away. That someone, at least for my clients, fall on me.
I am happy to to report that the 14.2rc1 almost fixed the sync problem the short time I got to test it :-) I will soon move on to 15 alpha when I get back from my "road trip", but will still recreate and report the original sync problems as soon as possible but I am not able to set a firm date yet.
jjd-uk: Thanks! :-)
Audiomixer: Hope you skipped this for your own good. Any more comments like that: I'm out of here for good.. OK?

[mou]

Perhaps you could spend many less words talking about the irrelevant and just get to the point as to your exact problem, which, after reading your stuff, still escapes me. Have you tried disabling VDADecoding under hardware acceleration?

Worked for me too!