[Heilage]

I'm on a Zotac ION ITX-U running the latest XBMCBuntu Eden.

Audio settings:
- Coax/Optical
- Boost volume level on downmix - ON
- Dolby Digital (AC3) capable receiver - ON
- DTS capable receiver - ON

Audio output device: Defaults (ALSA)
Passthrough output device: iec958 (ALSA)

I can play SD files with MP3 audio tracks just fine. However, whenever I try to play any video file with a Dolby Digital or DTS audio track, I get the above mentioned error message. This is kinda boring, since many of my ripped movies have these audio tracks.

Help?

EDIT:
I messed around a bit with the settings, and now it works. The receiver has the PCM icon showing now, all the time. Does this mean that the receiver now handles all the encoding of the audio, regardless of format?

[Plaguester]

PCM means that XBMC is doing all the audio decoding before passing the audio to the receiver.

[Heilage]

I guess the next question then is, how is that compared to when the receiver does it (i.e. which is better)? If so, how do I change it?

[pumkinut]

Neither is really better, the bits are bits. Both bitstreams are fed to your receivers digital to analog convert (DAC) to be converted to a signal that's output to your speakers. Both bitstreams are identical. The only possible problem could be that you might lose sync if the receiver is converting the audio, but that's probably not a problem. If the CPU usage is fine, then having XBMC perform the audio decoding is not a problem.

[Heilage]

But PCM is a stereo signal, isn't it? (I googled around, it didn't seem like Coaxial cables could carry more complex PCM signals) That would be an issue when I upgrade to a 5.1 system later this year.

[pumkinut]

PCM stands for Pulse Code Modulation, it's simply the digitally decoded bits. It can be stereo or it can be multi-channel audio e.g. DTS or Dolby Digital (AC3) it's just that the receiver is getting the bits in their decoded for rather than still encoded.

[KevBel]

Help?

EDIT:
I messed around a bit with the settings, and now it works. The receiver has the PCM icon showing now, all the time. Does this mean that the receiver now handles all the encoding of the audio, regardless of format?

What are your settings that work?

[cmckitterick]

Seconded. I'm having this exact issue.

[jochen]

I'm having the same problem on Ubuntu since XBMC was upgraded to Eden. Before this was never a problem. The first playback after boot is ok, but subsequent playbacks raise the "Failed to initialize audio device" error.