[LINUX] HOW-TO get multi-channel HD sound output working over NVIDIA HDMI

[LINUX] HOW-TO get multi-channel HD sound output working over NVIDIA HDMI - Printable Version

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- michal - 2009-10-24 02:37

Any chance getting some help with the problem I described?

I still have not been able to get any audio via the HDMI Sad

Regards,
Michal

- alanwww1 - 2009-10-24 10:44

michal Wrote:Any chance getting some help with the problem I described?

I still have not been able to get any audio via the HDMI

Regards,
Michal

Hi Michael !

If you try to get hdmi audio out of Nvidia G210 video card (what is in your signarure) and you followed the posts you can know that there is no solution to these new cards yet. I was able to get somewhere, but not working yet. Nvidia has to give us some help with these cards in the future.

- hebjor - 2009-10-31 12:56

Great stuff alanwww1, this thread cleared up pretty much all the questions I had about this topic Smile

- ylagace - 2009-11-03 23:39

Great How-to Alan!

I have followed your guide and the end result is fantastic! I now can watch all my BluRay movies with True-HD and DTS-MA. With the new PGS subtitle support I really have everything I need to enjoy my whole video library. This really beats the Popcorn solution, even the C-200.

One question since you are so knowledgeable about audio. How would you characterize the audio quality of a True-HD or DTS-MA track transmitted in 6 channels LPCM over HDMI compared to having it bitstream to an Onkyo 605 class receiver (if this was possible)? Did you (or know someone) ever had a chance to compare this type of track between a PC rig with ARcSoft and Xonar (bitstreaming) and your linux box with your upgrade (6 channels LPCM)? Would an audiophile notice the difference?

I wonder if the Onkyo is doing some extra processing when they light up that blue light (better??) or perform a dumb decode and pass on the signal to the speakers (no difference??)?

Just curious!

Thanks for an amazing sustained effort to bring that major breakthrough to our community.

Ivan

P.S. I still have an issue with the AC-DC No Bull BluRay with VC-1, LPCM and TrueHD tracks. I get audio but no video. Anyone had that problem? I have to create a new thread with log file once I finish travelling and get back home!...

- alanwww1 - 2009-11-04 00:45

ylagace Wrote:One question since you are so knowledgeable about audio. How would you characterize the audio quality of a True-HD or DTS-MA track transmitted in 6 channels LPCM over HDMI compared to having it bitstream to an Onkyo 605 class receiver (if this was possible)? Did you (or know someone) ever had a chance to compare this type of track between a PC rig with ARcSoft and Xonar (bitstreaming) and your linux box with your upgrade (6 channels LPCM)? Would an audiophile notice the difference?.

Hello Ivan !

Thanks for the feedback. It is great to hear that i can help others getting better experience with xbmc. All credit goes to the devs who are letting this happen.

I never compared the bitstreamed audio quality to the uncompressed LPCM quality, but theoretically and practically should be the same. The only difference is the place where decoding happens. But the quality really is the same.

With pure audio mode of the Onkyo receivers it just means that the it does not make any processing (nor analog nor digital) to the sound. So for example if you had some artificial hall effect setting it turns that off making sure that you hear the sound as it is. So i think it is more about having the sound untouched than about quality.

- Kali - 2009-11-04 16:58

@ylagace

there is no free dts-hd codec, only True-HD track are comparable

- pregi - 2009-11-04 22:28

how did you get true-hd working via hdmi with this guide? i just got stereo output on my denon 4308

- Ooblivion - 2009-11-05 04:21

I'm running my HTPC through hdmi directly to my TV. My HTPC setup is in my sig.

Using the settings of "plugin:hdmi" and passthrough of "hdmi" I was able to get audio when I played a movie or a song. But nothing else. No gui sounds, no sound when running huludesktop, etc.

So I thought I'd run though this tutorial since I'm not much of a linux guru and see if I could get that to work.

First, I upgraded to the latest NVidia driver: 190.42. Then I followed the setup for the PulseAudio way (since I wanted gui sounds and sounds outside of xbmc).

And now I don't have any sound at all. Eek

Maybe since I'm not needing multichannel, I shouldn't have tried this setup.

Should I remove this setup, i.e:

Code:

rm ~/.pulse/default.pa ~/.pulse/daemon.conf /etc/asound.conf

and try something else? I'm not sure what to do now...

Any help would be greatly appreciated! Thank you!

- alanwww1 - 2009-11-05 08:26

Hi Oblivion !

Are you using "default" in xbmc as audio device ? Disable passthrough there.

Have you checked pavucontrol utility if pulseaudio is working properly ?

What happens if you try

Code:

speaker-test -Dhw:0,3 -c2

in a terminal.

You can revert the changes removing those files. Note that my guide is for Ubuntu Jaunty at this time. Have you upgraded Alsa ?
What is the output of

Code:

aplay -l

and

Code:

aplay -L

- Ooblivion - 2009-11-05 17:20

Thank you for the very quick reply, alanwww1!

Quote:Are you using "default" in xbmc as audio device ? Disable passthrough there.

I am using default in xbmc and set passthrough as "custom", with nothing filled in.

There is no audio when I run a windows manager, like gnome, either.

Quote:What happens if you try: speaker-test -Dhw:0,3 -c2 in a terminal.

Well, what do you know. That worked! At least I got the sound coming out of the right and left speakers of the TV while running gnome.

Quote:Note that my guide is for Ubuntu Jaunty at this time. Have you upgraded Alsa ?

I am using Ubuntu Jaunty and my Alsa version is current:

Code:

[color=blue]$ cat /proc/asound/version

Advanced Linux Sound Architecture Driver Version 1.0.21.

Compiled on Nov  4 2009 for kernel 2.6.28-11-generic (SMP).[/color]

The outputs from a terminal are:

Code:

[color=blue]$ aplay -l

**** List of PLAYBACK Hardware Devices ****

card 0: NVidia [HDA NVidia], device 0: ALC1200 Analog [ALC1200 Analog]

  Subdevices: 1/1

  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0

card 0: NVidia [HDA NVidia], device 1: ALC1200 Digital [ALC1200 Digital]

  Subdevices: 1/1

  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0

card 0: NVidia [HDA NVidia], device 3: NVIDIA HDMI [NVIDIA HDMI]

  Subdevices: 1/1

  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0[/color]

and

Code:

[color=blue]$ aplay -L

default:CARD=NVidia

    HDA NVidia, ALC1200 Analog

    Default Audio Device

front:CARD=NVidia,DEV=0

    HDA NVidia, ALC1200 Analog

    Front speakers

surround40:CARD=NVidia,DEV=0

    HDA NVidia, ALC1200 Analog

    4.0 Surround output to Front and Rear speakers

surround41:CARD=NVidia,DEV=0

    HDA NVidia, ALC1200 Analog

    4.1 Surround output to Front, Rear and Subwoofer speakers

surround50:CARD=NVidia,DEV=0

    HDA NVidia, ALC1200 Analog

    5.0 Surround output to Front, Center and Rear speakers

surround51:CARD=NVidia,DEV=0

    HDA NVidia, ALC1200 Analog

    5.1 Surround output to Front, Center, Rear and Subwoofer speakers

surround71:CARD=NVidia,DEV=0

    HDA NVidia, ALC1200 Analog

    7.1 Surround output to Front, Center, Side, Rear and Woofer speakers

iec958:CARD=NVidia,DEV=0

    HDA NVidia, ALC1200 Digital

    IEC958 (S/PDIF) Digital Audio Output

hdmi:CARD=NVidia,DEV=0

    HDA NVidia, NVIDIA HDMI

    HDMI Audio Output

null

    Discard all samples (playback) or generate zero samples (capture)[/color]

I setup gnome to use pulseaudio as you showed in your tutorial. But the "test" buttons on the audio setup didn't produce any sounds.

You mentioned at the beginning of the pulseaudio setup:

Quote:If you want to use Pulseaudio with dedicated htpc setup, like xbmcbuntu, you must install pulseaudio package first. Probably you also have to put pulseaudio -D in your xbmc startup script.

Do I have to manually startup pulseaudio? Do I need to put "pulseaudio -D" in my xbmc setup script?

When I run in a simple terminal, not in gnome, I get:

Code:

[color=blue]$ pulseaudio -D

I: caps.c: Limited capabilities successfully to CAP_SYS_NICE.

I: caps.c: Dropping root privileges.

I: caps.c: Limited capabilities successfully to CAP_SYS_NICE.

N: main.c: Called SUID root and real-time and/or high-priority scheduling was requested in the configuration. However, we lack the necessary privileges:

N: main.c: We are not in group 'pulse-rt', PolicyKit refuse to grant us the requested privileges and we have no increase RLIMIT_NICE/RLIMIT_RTPRIO resource limits.

N: main.c: For enabling real-time/high-priority scheduling please acquire the appropriate PolicyKit privileges, or become a member of 'pulse-rt', or increase the RLIMIT_NICE/RLIMIT_RTPRIO resource limits for this user.

E: main.c: Daemon startup failed.[/color]

If I run with sudo:

Code:

[color=blue](T: XBMCLive)xbmc@XBMCLive:~$ sudo pulseaudio -D

W: main.c: This program is not intended to be run as root (unless --system is specified).

E: main.c: Daemon startup failed.

(T: XBMCLive)xbmc@XBMCLive:~$ sudo pulseaudio -D --system

W: main.c: Running in system mode, but --disallow-exit not set!

W: main.c: Running in system mode, but --disallow-module-loading not set!

N: main.c: Running in system mode, forcibly disabling SHM mode!

N: main.c: Running in system mode, forcibly disabling exit idle time![/color]

Sorry for the long post. And thank you again for the help, alan.