[slizzap]

Already ahead of you there. First thing I always do after I do the ATI CCC installation is open up the list of Playback Devices and configure the speakers for the HDMI output. Just like you said, by default it's set to stereo. I set that to 5.1 and run through the test tones. Everything works perfectly here. I usually configure the sound to 24-bit 96khz (studio quality), but I even took that back down to 16-bit 41khz...none of that really matters in this case anyways.

I think all the obvious stuff really is out of the way here. Tonight I'll be working on getting AC3/DTS passthrough working outside of XBMC to make sure it's working properly from the PC itself.

There is a separate Realtek ATI HDMI driver. Here's their download page (just click on the accept checkbox). It's the one highlighted in red. It's a Realtek driver specifically for the ATI cards with HDMI out.
http://www.realtek.com.tw/downloads/down...Down=false

I've always just been accustomed to using the Realtek driver over the ATI driver, since when I first built my HTPC (when the Radeon HD 3xxx series just came out) I think the ATI driver was completely broken...sound only worked over HDMI using the Realtek driver. Based on what I read recently It seems like there are pros and cons to using both, but they both now work.

[G|zO]

Does boxee play the same files correctly?
DirectSound vs Wasapi makes a difference?

slizzap, you have no loss of quality. AC3 decoding is bitperfect and hdmi/wasapi is bitperfect too. The only thing you lose is the pretty Dolby light on the receiver.
If the receiver applies additional processing, that's another story.

Boxee play the same files just as perfect as camelot!
And bitstreamed DTS-HD! I didnt know that!

[steelman1991]

Already ahead of you there. First thing I always do after I do the ATI CCC installation is open up the list of Playback Devices and configure the speakers for the HDMI output. Just like you said, by default it's set to stereo. I set that to 5.1 and run through the test tones. Everything works perfectly here. I usually configure the sound to 24-bit 96khz (studio quality), but I even took that back down to 16-bit 41khz...none of that really matters in this case anyways.

I think all the obvious stuff really is out of the way here. Tonight I'll be working on getting AC3/DTS passthrough working outside of XBMC to make sure it's working properly from the PC itself.

There is a separate Realtek ATI HDMI driver. Here's their download page (just click on the accept checkbox). It's the one highlighted in red. It's a Realtek driver specifically for the ATI cards with HDMI out.
http://www.realtek.com.tw/downloads/down...Down=false

I've always just been accustomed to using the Realtek driver over the ATI driver, since when I first built my HTPC (when the Radeon HD 3xxx series just came out) I think the ATI driver was completely broken...sound only worked over HDMI using the Realtek driver. Based on what I read recently It seems like there are pros and cons to using both, but they both now work.

Sorry my bad - I've never noticed the Realtek driver was named in that fashion. Good luck with the continued troubleshooting - unfortunately with that last piece of advice I'm beyond my comfort zone - hopefully CrystalP or one of the other devs will resolve this for you.

Can only imagine your frustration - especially as its something that certainly for me - just works

[john.eyl]

Forgive my possible ignorance here, but is there a guide to getting AC3/DTS passthrough working properly with XBMC? Are there supposed to be any special steps? Any required plugins/codecs/software of any sort?
TIA.

Slizzap - like Cartman said, there is nothing special required by XBMC - as long as the output format and output device are set correctly. That's why I am frustrated that I can bitstream DTS but I can't get AC3. I know it isn't the gfx card or chipset drivers on my HD5750 because every other app just works. On your new setup can you play AC3 using something else? My initial reaction was to replace the HDMI cable but this is not the issue if AC3 works in other apps. A useful exercise may be to download GraphStudio.exe and load your media into it to see what filters are being loaded by default. If you play the media using graphstudio, do you get AC3?

Steelman - What gfx card and receiver / pre-pro do you have in your setup? I'm still wondering whether XBMC sends some sort of flag(s) to the pre/pro or receiver that let's it know what it's supposed to be decoding, or if its handled at the hardware level or by the filters decoding the audio?

[steelman1991]

John - my card is an ATI HD5450 to an Onkyo 805 receiver and there to B&W M1 sats (PV1 sub). I'm not technically gifted enough to know what is happening behind the scenes other than the fact that xbmc does not use any other codecs to generate audio and that it has worked flawlessly in all builds since I started using xbmc about 2 years ago (with obvious changes to gfx hardware during that time).

[slizzap]

Well, I think I'm finally barking up the right tree. I can't get my PC to bitstream anything. I've tried using PowerDVD10 with HDMI passthrough, tried codecs with WMP...everything is sent across as PCM. I'm trying to enlist the help of some people at avsforum. It might be an EDID problem. I'm going to try that next, and if that doesn't help then I'm going to start playing with different hardware and operating systems.

This is extra-frustrating, since as steelman said it should just work. I'm starting to think that my PC has never bitstreamed. At the very least I can enable HDMI output in XBMC and just turn off the options for AC3 and DTS. I know that works and sends it to the receiver properly in PCM. I've tested with various formats, and everything works and sounds good. Now I'm just curious how much better it can sound if it was bitstreamed properly.

Hopefully I'll be back with good news :/

[steelman1991]

That is interesting slizzap - care to link to the avsforums thread - would like to follow.

Thanks

EDIT - OK got it - here it is for anyone else interested http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthrea...61&page=60

[slizzap]

I think I'm going to go purchase a gun so I can shoot myself. Despite looking through the menus and checking all my settings MULTIPLE times, it was a setting on the receiver. Apparently it wasn't set to the correct "auto" mode. I switched into that while a Bluray was playing in PowerDVD and Dolby Digital kicked in. Tested with XBMC, turned back on the AC3 and DTS settings, and whaddya know...it worked beautifully. Tested with AC3 and DTS encoded movies, and they sounded great. On my way to work so I don't have time to test more things or really crank the audio and give it a good listen, but I solved my problem. I think my new motto is "NEVER rule out stupidity". Thanks for the input, guys. And good luck to the rest of you.

Just an FYI, since these might still help others, here are the threads on avsforum I've been following:

ATI Radeon HD 5800, 5700 and 5600 Series Thread: Supporting HD Audio Bitstreaming!

EDID Overrides to solve bitstreaming issues for ATI 5xxx's - Note: This is strictly related to bitstreaming of HD audio such as TrueHD, but it still sounded applicable.

ATI HD 5000 Series Known Problems (5870 5850 5770 5750 5670 5570 5450)

[steelman1991]

Happy you got it working

[john.eyl]

Happy for you as well Slizzap . It's good when it works!!

But for me I could always get AC3, DTS, DTS-MA and TrueHD to bitstream. I just can't get AC3 to bitstream with Dharma! What a PIA. The really annoying bit is that it works on camelot! I don't want to use camelot tho because I want some of the enhancements dharma has, especially around handling / scraping bluray file structure.

[G|zO]

Me to.
I also tryed Boxee, and the sound worked perfect!

[willrom]

Everything worked great in Camelot. Broke in Dharma betas, still broken.

ATI 5000 series card. Win 7 64bit ent.

Everything still works in VLC.

DTS works in Dharma. Have to change audio output to analog for AC3 audio to transmit.

[cartman1337]

Wow! I was amazed when I downloaded something called "Release Candidate 1" of Dharma and found it was completely ruined as far as audio output goes (no Dolby Digital bitstreaming working is equivalent to ruined in my book, as far as media players go). But now you've actually gone and RELEASED this, without having fixed the issue in question, despite several bug reports included in this thread, obviously seen by developers who've commented in this thread, and even dare to call it stable? You've just lost a LOT of cred in my book!

I just downloaded the release version, tried to play a Dolby Digital encoded movie, discovered it still doesn't work, tried all available audio settings without getting it to work. So I continued to uninstall it and reinstall the previous version, which as far as I'm concerned is still the latest STABLE version of XBMC...

So, what I'd like to know is, are anyone working on this rather serious bug? Enough users have joined this thread to suggest the problem is quite real, and now that you've just released it as "stable" I'm pretty sure there will be quite a lot more users with AMD 5xxx cards who'll also run into it. Further more, if you need me to provide any sort of usage dump or anything along those lines to get more to work on, let me know...

[CrystalP]

We just had to release Dharma and move on. It had been way too long already. It means that not every bug could be fixed.

I compared boxee's code with ours and the way the sound device is opened is identical, so a fix will not be trivial, especially since no dev can repro. So if it's important to you, help find which the revision or a date range when the breakage happened. To do that, download the code and build older versions of xbmc unless you can find pre-built versions that are old enough.

Other than that, I hope the issue will be fixed with the AE branch merge, which will replace all audio code and do things more correctly.

[cartman1337]

We just had to release Dharma and move on. It had been way too long already. It means that not every bug could be fixed.

I compared boxee's code with ours and the way the sound device is opened is identical, so a fix will not be trivial, especially since no dev can repro. So if it's important to you, help find which the revision or a date range when the breakage happened. To do that, download the code and build older versions of xbmc unless you can find pre-built versions that are old enough.

Other than that, I hope the issue will be fixed with the AE branch merge, which will replace all audio code and do things more correctly.

Why can't you just use the sound device part from version 9, which worked perfectly?