[Preacher]

Having difficulty getting sound from HDMI, but on further investigation MP3s and some films play fine but others don't.

Further narrowed it down to specific types of films, largely those that have a certain audio track. If I run "mediainfo" against a couple of films, under Audio Format I've found the following:

DTS AC-3 <-- these give just white noise, just a hiss.
MPEG audio, AAC <-- play fine.

So I'm guessing I need to get codecs to decode audio somehow.

I've also noticed that I have several audio devices listed under System>Settings>Audio Output device... close to 7, with many names being repeated. This was largely me playing around with the asound.conf and a few other files in the attempt to get sound working (before I discovered it could be a codec issue) so I've probably got a lot of erroneous entries.

What's the best way to clear them out? I'm presuming I can scrub some config file then let XBMC reprobe the hardware for the correct settings?

[Preacher]

Okay, this is me being an idiot....

This is my TV which - as the specifications show - does not support DTS. I can't claim to understand the other terminology, but it means sending digital audio down the HDMI cable explains the white noise I was getting.

Flicking the Audio settings to "Analog" produced... sound! Volia!

So, if anyone else has issues getting sound working: try simple analogue first - that'll tell you the audio stream's working fine.

(Incidentally, I was getting menu sounds out-of-the-box so I perhaps I was a bit premature in following the original Audio-over-HDMI guide).

[Memphiz]

Turn it back to HDMI and just deactivate the "DTS capable Receiver Option" would be the right way to do it imo...

[wsnipex]

the result of both methods is the same. Setting "Analog" just disabled all passthrough options. If your TV can do AC3, you can switch back to HDMI and disable all passthrough options but AC3

[Preacher]

Turn it back to HDMI and just deactivate the "DTS capable Receiver Option" would be the right way to do it imo...

Ohhh... okay. That probably explains why I had sound before with the HDMI option on (when using OpenELEC). I'll give that a go, thanks.

the result of both methods is the same. Setting "Analog" just disabled all passthrough options. If your TV can do AC3, you can switch back to HDMI and disable all passthrough options but AC3

Sorry to sound stupid, but.. where could I determine if my TV can do AC3? I've got the following listed in the tech specs:

HD Soundsystem compatibility MPEG4 AVC / MPEG4 AAC no/no

I got the info from here, under Tech Specs.

Other question still on topic: how do I clear out those redundant entries in "Audio Device" and "Passthrough"...?

[nickr]

Turn AC3 on and see if it works with an AC3 file is probably the surest way, but your TVs manual is another option.

[Preacher]

Aha, okay.. that would make sense! I'll try that later tonight, thanks!

(where's the + button to increase reputation?)

[negge]

It's right next to the Find button under every post.

[Preacher]

okay.. I'm missing something. I see PM and FIND lower-left but nothing else.

[Preacher]

Turn it back to HDMI and just deactivate the "DTS capable Receiver Option" would be the right way to do it imo...

It was! Works, thanks!

Turn AC3 on and see if it works with an AC3 file is probably the surest way, but your TVs manual is another option.

Back to white noise... so that means the TV's not capable of AC3.

Anyway... sound all works as planned, so thanks to all who assisted. I'm going to leave the other sound options as they stand, not going to look at clearing stuff out.

Can a mod close this thread as SOLVED?

[negge]

You can change the topic yourself by editing the first post.

[Kib]

Marked solved

[Preacher]

You can change the topic yourself by editing the first post.

Aha, didn't know that. Many forums I'm on often prevent post editing after a timeout threshold to avoid trolling.

Marked solved

Thanks. Just read the advice in your link also!