[PatrickVogeli]

Hi there!

I've installed the latest Gotham RC1 on Linux Mint 17 (Ubuntu 14.04 for that matter). After playing a lot with the settings, I got passthrough as said in the wiki:
http://wiki.xbmc.org/index.php?title=Pul...rough_Mode

Set pavucontrol to HDMI out (stereo), then checked AC3, EAC3 and DTS. After that, in XBMC, set the output device to Audio intern digital stereo (HDMI), HDMI/DisplayPort 3 (Pulse audio), best coincidence, limit to 96kHz, and enabled all the passthrough stuff.

Firing up a movie, Dolby Digital and DTS Passthrought works and I get surround sound. However, playing multi channel FLAC doesn't work, wether it is in a video file or a pure audio file, it is reproduced and 2.0 only. In Eden it would play as a 5.1 LPCM stream and worked great. If I enable Dolby transcode then I get 5.1, but I don't really like that solution (also the playback skips the song after some seconds, but that's another story).

If I set pavucontrol to 5.1, then I get multichannel everywhere, but no passthrough (as already pointed out on the wiki).

So... with which setting can I get Passthrought and 5.1 LPCM for FLAC files?? Is that even possible?

Thanks a lot!

[PatrickVogeli]

I have found sort of an answer: disable Pulseaudio altogether. After disabling it and rebooting, XBMC shows different options, similar to those Eden had. I now get passthrough for dolby and dts, as well as LPCM multichannel for my multchannel flacs.

All in all, I think that running without pulseaudio is the better option for me... so without pulse it is. Anyway, I'd still be interested if the same is possible without disabling pulseaudio and without enabling AC3 transcoding.

To disable pulse: sudo update-rc.d -f pulseaudio remove and reboot. To enable it again: sudo update-rc.d pulseaudio defaults and reboot.

Patrick

[wsnipex]

alternatively you can also start xbmc like this:
pasuspender -- AE_SINK=Alsa xbmc

[PatrickVogeli]

hi, thanks for answering. Your solution would be great for those using their xbmc machine also as a desktop, where it would be best to keep Pulse.

However, I'm still interested in knowing if this is possible without killing or suspending pulseaudio. I realize it's not an XBMC issue, but seems like it's a step back from Frodo

Patrick

[fritsch]

No it's not possible. Pulseaudio is an audio server, which has an either or configuration:

a) 2 channel config + passthrough (ac3, dts, eac3)
XOR:
b) multi channel config without passthrough

The latter even has a bigger issue, cause it "matches the channel layout" by default, which will make all stereo audio upmixed by default (that can be changed though in the pulseaudio config enable-remixing = no in /etc/pulse/daemon.conf)

[fritsch]

Concerning "step back from Frodo":

In Frodo there was no capable pulseaudio sink at all. So plain ALSA was used, which highly interfered with the running pulseaudio server (segfaults on start, blocked passthrough devices and so on). For Gotham we decided, that users that have "voluntarily" installed pulseaudio, want to use it - if they did this, they have to cope with its capabilities.

[PatrickVogeli]

I had already realized the issue you mention with the multi channel config, were it would upmix all stereo content to multichannel. IMO, that's a pool default config choice.

About Frodo, I had also some issues where the audio was not available on so on.. that's true. I guess the current implementation is much better, should prevent some issues from happening. And yeah, although it introduces its own one, those are "chosen" by the user by using Pulse.

Thanks for all the clarification!

[fritsch]

I use the pulseaudio sink myself on my laptop. I like it to plugin my working machine into my TV and just using AC3 transcode or DTS passthrough when watching a movie. When I am on the "audiophile" trip, I plain use ALSA which has more features - but is solely exclusively. So my dedicated xbmc htpc is running ALSA of course.

Another really nice use case, is the now possible Desktop Integration (most PA users have a full blown Desktop running). Now you can watch movies windowed in xbmc, while browsing the web, watching flash games, getting email notifications, which is quite nice on a Desktop.

Or running 3 xbmcs in parallel while listening to rhythmbox :-)


Ah, I also use the sound over network thingy, which is nice - playback stuff wireless on the AVR (paprefs) and the combined sink. (Analog at the laptop, something else on the AVR and so on).

[PatrickVogeli]

well, that's crazy! Fortunately, my uses are much more simple. I won't be disabling Pulseaudio on my laptop, but I don't need it in my xbmc machine.