[Windows] AudioEngine testers - Windows platform only

**thrak76** · 2012-04-01 21:10

Forgive me, but... is the AE used for playback of video and music files?

So, if you had an ISO in your music library, it would play back the 5.1 tracks from within the music library? I have a lot of surround music that uses DVD-video for the format. Would i still have to use the videos library for this playback? Does the AE strictly deal with music files in the music library? Sorry if that's confusing, but i would try this build out if I knew some of these answers...

HeresJohnny · 2012-04-01 22:01

(2012-04-01 20:06)DDDamian Wrote: The 24/96 Elvis Costello track should play beautifully - but I see lot's of

I narrowed down the flac playback problem to the "sync video to display" being enabled. With that turned off, hi-res flac plays fine. Still no joy with dts, though. That's strange, because even standard XBMC makes the DTS light come up on my receiver.

The log is cut off because at that point XBMC just froze trying to play the DTS Confused

**DDDamian** · 2012-04-01 22:30

@ix400 - had a look through the log (thanks for that) and noticed one big issue:

Code:

08:44:33 T:2940   DEBUG: Error: Requested setting (pvrplayback.signalquality) was not found.  It must be case-sensitive

08:44:36 T:2200   DEBUG: Previous line repeats 90 times.

The log is full of it. It was a bug in the Aeon skin where it was compiled with pvr-enabled, and when it can't find the pvr it spams the log with a ton of error messages. This ties up all kinds of CPU cycles and can easily cause playback glitches like you're seeing on high-bitrate files. Not related to AE, but will affect it big-time.

See here:
http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?tid=114383

I'd start by eliminating that. Try a different skin and if that doesn't help you'll have to do a clean install unfortunately. Once that issue is gone you should see much better results overall. For the buffer value i'd recommend anywhere from 50msec to 100msec as a starting range (I may have to change that default value), but you need to eliminate that pvr spam bug or you just won't get any performance out of 1080p and DTS-MA with it stealing CPU time.

**DDDamian** · 2012-04-01 22:34

(2012-04-01 21:10)thrak76 Wrote: Forgive me, but... is the AE used for playback of video and music files?

So, if you had an ISO in your music library, it would play back the 5.1 tracks from within the music library? I have a lot of surround music that uses DVD-video for the format. Would i still have to use the videos library for this playback? Does the AE strictly deal with music files in the music library? Sorry if that's confusing, but i would try this build out if I knew some of these answers...

AE handles all the audio - regardless of whether played via the internal DVDPlayer (video) or PAPlayer (audio only music player), If the files are in DVD-Video format, whether ISO or in vob files in a VIDEO_TS folder, then you need to play them as videos. But AE will be doing the audio either way. Technically you're playing a video if the files are in vob/vts/iso files.

**DDDamian** · 2012-04-01 22:38

(2012-04-01 22:01)HeresJohnny Wrote:
(2012-04-01 20:06)DDDamian Wrote: The 24/96 Elvis Costello track should play beautifully - but I see lot's of

I narrowed down the flac playback problem to the "sync video to display" being enabled. With that turned off, hi-res flac plays fine. Still no joy with dts, though. That's strange, because even standard XBMC makes the DTS light come up on my receiver.

The log is cut off because at that point XBMC just froze trying to play the DTS

Good to hear - I don't recommend the "sync video to display" for any high-def audio - or in general for that matter.

Can you post a log trying only the Peter Gabriel video? I play it on mine fine. I know that it is one of the very few out there that uses DTS 96/24 audio, so it may be that your audio device doesn't handle DTS 96/24 and standard XBMC is playing the core DTS track.

liquidskin76 · 2012-04-02 01:31

Hi DDDamian,

Good news! The pausing/hanging when seeking is fixed. Well done. Wink

The only thing i am seeing is video is slighty jumpy after seeking on all bitstreamed audio, plus plays fast for a second or two after seeking. Decoded audio like flac is fine. Maybe one for later (in the name of polishing to perfection!).

Oh, and the famous 24p audio sync issue isn't present!!! Big Grin

Guessing this has nothing to do the audio delay patch that exists?

Thanks. Keep up the great work.

**DDDamian** · 2012-04-02 02:04

Hey liquidskin - great news, and nice to hear!

The jumpy restart is something I'm working on - the output device gets re-opened twice, so it adds to the delay - should be an easy bug to nail down Smile

And nope - no audio delay patch activated (although you can just by adding the advancedsettings tags) - this is pure and natural better timing code!

Awesome to hear - will nail that re-opening bug. In the meantime, enjoy the sound!!! Smile

liquidskin76 · 2012-04-02 02:11

(2012-04-02 02:04)DDDamian Wrote: Hey liquidskin - great news, and nice to hear!

The jumpy restart is something I'm working on - the output device gets re-opened twice, so it adds to the delay - should be an easy bug to nail down

And nope - no audio delay patch activated (although you can just by adding the advancedsettings tags) - this is pure and natural better timing code!

Awesome to hear - will nail that re-opening bug. In the meantime, enjoy the sound!!!

DDDamian... gnif and you are bloody good blokes!

Great to see the '24p/match refresh rate' issue properly fixed. That will please ALOT of people!! Big Grin

Also, great to hear you're on the case with the jumpy restart. Wink

Are you planning on doing a Eden final build/git update? The possible merge to master date is getting closer, so you may feel it's not worth it?

Cheers

Oh... the slight delay on audio returning after a seek is still there. Could that be due to the output device being opened twice?

Cheers

**DDDamian** · 2012-04-02 03:51

(2012-04-02 02:11)liquidskin76 Wrote:
(2012-04-02 02:04)DDDamian Wrote: Hey liquidskin - great news, and nice to hear!

The jumpy restart is something I'm working on - the output device gets re-opened twice, so it adds to the delay - should be an easy bug to nail down

And nope - no audio delay patch activated (although you can just by adding the advancedsettings tags) - this is pure and natural better timing code!

Awesome to hear - will nail that re-opening bug. In the meantime, enjoy the sound!!!

DDDamian... gnif and you are bloody good blokes!

Great to see the '24p/match refresh rate' issue properly fixed. That will please ALOT of people!! Also, great to hear you're on the case with the jumpy restart.

Are you planning on doing a Eden final build/git update? The possible merge to master date is getting closer, so you may feel it's not worth it?

Cheers
Oh... the slight delay on audio returning after a seek is still there. Could that be due to the output device being opened twice?

Cheers

I'll definitely do another merge with master soon, not so much for the Eden final bit, but because of some other goodies going in after Eden final was released.

And yep - that audio delay on seek is related to the double-opening. Minimizing the buffer size should minimize it, but it's not the root cause - which you've correctly figured out Wink

Glad to here it's going well for you!

jayhawk785 · 2012-04-02 15:29

(2012-04-01 22:38)DDDamian Wrote:
(2012-04-01 22:01)HeresJohnny Wrote:
(2012-04-01 20:06)DDDamian Wrote: The 24/96 Elvis Costello track should play beautifully - but I see lot's of

I narrowed down the flac playback problem to the "sync video to display" being enabled. With that turned off, hi-res flac plays fine. Still no joy with dts, though. That's strange, because even standard XBMC makes the DTS light come up on my receiver.

The log is cut off because at that point XBMC just froze trying to play the DTS

Good to hear - I don't recommend the "sync video to display" for any high-def audio - or in general for that matter.

Can you post a log trying only the Peter Gabriel video? I play it on mine fine. I know that it is one of the very few out there that uses DTS 96/24 audio, so it may be that your audio device doesn't handle DTS 96/24 and standard XBMC is playing the core DTS track.

I tried this build briefly on sunday morning (currently using the windows patch version) --I had the same issue described above but did not have a chance to grab a log. i do use Aeon Nox, so I'm not sure if the PVR piece was present or not. I also have sync audio checked. Initially my AVR showed the light bouncing and no audio was rendered/slow video. I went into audio settings again and forced the Denon AVR/nvidia/hdmi output. This resulted in cannot initialize your audio device errors. I'll see if I can reproduce it again and grab a debug log. The machine is an i5 w/ 460gtx card--so it should have plenty of juice. The AVR is a denon 3311. I can test vs. denon 3310, 3311, and 4311 if need be. I just wanted to chime in that it happened to me as well. DTS / DD audio worked fine -- even when the hd audio reported could not initialize device.