[AudioEngine] Support for AE on Windows platform

Maybe DDDamien can shed some light on this when he returns? The CPU utilisation in audio and the problem with 5.0 FLAC files (earlier in the thread) are also worth looking at.

(2012-07-03 23:28)fat-tony Wrote:  When you set AC3 enabled on xbmc, it is sent via the passthrough setting to which you have allocated the S/PDIF connection - so it plays on the Panasonic receiver. How is the TV connected? I am assuming that you are using an HDMI cable direct from your HTPC to the TV. Because the AC3 sound is routed via passthrough it is not being sent via HDMI. If you try to set passthrough to HDMI what happens? Some TVs can handle AC3 but others may not.

When you disable AC3 on xbmc it decodes the AC3 data internally and sends it over the HDMI connection as PCM data rather than using passthrough, which is why you can hear the sound on the TV but not on the AVR.

I just route everything through my receiver, but yours may not handle HDMI, so you may need to try an alternative strategy if you want to use the TV on its own. Have a look at this thread which discusses a patched version of xbmc which handles dual audio output. Beware, though it's a huge thread

http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?tid=86038

Note that this patched version is not supported officially by xbmc and diverges from AE. There may be a way by using profiles within xbmc that you could set alternative sound configurations if you didn't want to keep switching the Directsound settings each time. I'm not sufficiently knowledgeable on profile settings to be sure whether this would work.

great...understood now...
let's see...but I guess I already tried my HDMI as passthrough and it didn't work...
with regards to the patch,..
i tried that before going to nightly built and I assume it's not supporting the audioengine, right?

@steefen.h - the dual audio is a complely separate build to audio engine and, from what I've read, is not going to be incorporated in AE.

I am using the nightly build and multichannel audio sources are not decoding to my MPCM receiver and only decode to 2 channels. This was working ok in 11.0.

Passthrough of DTS audio is working most of the time but not all the time.

I am using a Radeon HD5450 HDMI output.

(2012-07-03 20:30)Voyager-xbmc Wrote:  Eureka, I found it! It was a Catalyst setting indeed, "Pulldown detection" was checked. I unchecked it and now audio playback through WASAPI doesn't cause choppy playback anymore.

Thanks fat-tony, for the help you provided by running these tests.

Another update: I still had one more video that had little stutters with WASAPI audio. I disabled "Enforce Smooth Video Playback" in the Catalyst Control Center, and that fixed it too.

@Voyager-xbmc --- Within Catalyst, I disabled AMD Overdrive and all Video Quality Enhancements. This eliminated all video juddering in XBMC. Did you find any of the settings useful? If not, you may want to try turning them all off like I did. Good luck!

Has anyone been successful getting path substitution to work in the advancedsettings.xml file for the nightly builds? The exact same advancedsettings.xml works on Eden, but not the nightly builds. These are the lines from the xml.

<pathsubstitution>
<substitute>
<from>special://masterprofile/Thumbnails/</from>
<to>smb://45.45.45.10/XBMC_Common/Thumbnails/</to>
</substitute>
</pathsubstitution>

From the debug log:
16:19:39 T:4996 DEBUG: Trying to connect to \\45.45.45.10\XBMC_Common with username() and password(XXXX)
16:19:39 T:4996 ERROR: CWINFileSMB: Unable to open file for writing '\' Error '5

These are not the username and password set in the advancedsettings.xml file. Again, the exact same file, configuration, and share work on Eden.

Thanks!

UPDATE: Fixed... Something strange with the permissions on my Thumbnails share. I reset the permissions, and my problem is fixed.

Quick question. I'm running Frodo alpha 2, when I minimise XBMC and open a browser, to play a youtube clip say, the audio comes stright out of my laptop speakers, instead of through my 5.1 system like normal. It seems like my audio driver is locked by the new AE when its running as this didn't happen in Eden. Is there a way for XBMC to release the audio driver when its in the background, or will this be a possiblity later on? Forgive me if my explanation is not correct.

Also, my sound setup works with both WASAPI and DirectSound, could someone briefly explain the difference between these - and if one should be preferred over the other?

Thanks

has the CDVDPlayerAudio:: Discontinuity thing been looked into yet by anyone?


13th build still happening. Considering the June Cycle is out, this should be fixed by now.

pap player is broken in todays build -_-