2011-06-08, 17:51
Hi - first thanks in advance to anyone who takes the time to read/help out. I'm at my wits end!
Also I'm pretty much a total Linux newbie, so if any assistance could have that in mind I would greatly appreciate it!!
So I decided to follow the infamous lifehacker article & get myself an Acer Revo as a dedicated HTPC running XBMC. The article made it look so very easy - Wrong!
Anyway, got the Revo 3600, installed XBMC live... first major problem was inability to get sound over HDMI - I spend hours googling & trying different solutions from the forum, all without success. Finally I remembered I had an old Creative Soundblaster Live USB sitting around - plugged that in, switched the audio settings appropriately, and presto, optical out working perfectly to my amp and all was well. Watched a movie with my OH that evening, everything was great.
There was one small niggle - I was streaming from my NAS over Powerline networking and I could see from a few buffering pauses that it wasn't quite quick enough. I resolved to move my Revo to the other side of my TV stand from where I could just get my longest network cable to reach from my router... that involved unplugging and replugging all the Revo's cables (with it off, obviously), and I though nothing of it. Afterwards the sound suddenly wasn't working again... I panicked for a few minutes before realizing the cable was just loose - that back in, the sound was back on...
...but with a major problem - suddenly all my movies are playing back far too fast (including the movie we watched perfectly well the night before). To say this is infuriating is a major understatement... again I've been googleing for hours but without luck - most of what I find seems to be very outdated anyway (I'm pretty sure stuff about Pulseaudio has no relevance to me right?). After spending most of yesterday wrestling with the problem I'd had enough, & figured I must've just broken the SB Live somehow - so, I just went & bought a new Creative Xfi USB. Got home, plugged in - same problem... aaaargggg! If anything it's slightly faster with the Xfi - no idea if that gives any indication of the cause.
So that's my problem - things I've tried so far are: soundcard in different USB sockets, reintalling XBMC live (both before & since the Xfi), virtually every combination of sound output settings, adding an advancedsettings.xml with resample to 48k, qoing back to the old network cable (grasping at straws)... nothing has worked in the slightest - video still way too fast.
The sound output settings that give me sound, but with the speed issue, are Optical/Coax, 5.1... Boostvolume, DD & DTS all checked, Audio Output Device: "SB X-Fi Surround 5.1 Pro iec958", Passthrough: same again (although same result with just iec958). Any other combo gives failed to initialize sound error, but videos appear to be playing at normal speed (which makes me pretty sure its a sound issue).
All other settings default. I did try changing some video playback settings back before I reinstalled the first time, but without any luck. Haven't bothered since as they seem unrelated.
So that's it - any help very gladly received. I just can't understand how a setup that was working pretty much perfectly can go so very wrong without me really changing anything except moving it about a bit!
I'm more than happy to post logs if it'd help, but I'm not entirely how to go about that, so if there's a preferred method let me know.
Thanks!
Also I'm pretty much a total Linux newbie, so if any assistance could have that in mind I would greatly appreciate it!!
So I decided to follow the infamous lifehacker article & get myself an Acer Revo as a dedicated HTPC running XBMC. The article made it look so very easy - Wrong!
Anyway, got the Revo 3600, installed XBMC live... first major problem was inability to get sound over HDMI - I spend hours googling & trying different solutions from the forum, all without success. Finally I remembered I had an old Creative Soundblaster Live USB sitting around - plugged that in, switched the audio settings appropriately, and presto, optical out working perfectly to my amp and all was well. Watched a movie with my OH that evening, everything was great.
There was one small niggle - I was streaming from my NAS over Powerline networking and I could see from a few buffering pauses that it wasn't quite quick enough. I resolved to move my Revo to the other side of my TV stand from where I could just get my longest network cable to reach from my router... that involved unplugging and replugging all the Revo's cables (with it off, obviously), and I though nothing of it. Afterwards the sound suddenly wasn't working again... I panicked for a few minutes before realizing the cable was just loose - that back in, the sound was back on...
...but with a major problem - suddenly all my movies are playing back far too fast (including the movie we watched perfectly well the night before). To say this is infuriating is a major understatement... again I've been googleing for hours but without luck - most of what I find seems to be very outdated anyway (I'm pretty sure stuff about Pulseaudio has no relevance to me right?). After spending most of yesterday wrestling with the problem I'd had enough, & figured I must've just broken the SB Live somehow - so, I just went & bought a new Creative Xfi USB. Got home, plugged in - same problem... aaaargggg! If anything it's slightly faster with the Xfi - no idea if that gives any indication of the cause.
So that's my problem - things I've tried so far are: soundcard in different USB sockets, reintalling XBMC live (both before & since the Xfi), virtually every combination of sound output settings, adding an advancedsettings.xml with resample to 48k, qoing back to the old network cable (grasping at straws)... nothing has worked in the slightest - video still way too fast.
The sound output settings that give me sound, but with the speed issue, are Optical/Coax, 5.1... Boostvolume, DD & DTS all checked, Audio Output Device: "SB X-Fi Surround 5.1 Pro iec958", Passthrough: same again (although same result with just iec958). Any other combo gives failed to initialize sound error, but videos appear to be playing at normal speed (which makes me pretty sure its a sound issue).
All other settings default. I did try changing some video playback settings back before I reinstalled the first time, but without any luck. Haven't bothered since as they seem unrelated.
So that's it - any help very gladly received. I just can't understand how a setup that was working pretty much perfectly can go so very wrong without me really changing anything except moving it about a bit!
I'm more than happy to post logs if it'd help, but I'm not entirely how to go about that, so if there's a preferred method let me know.
Thanks!
