[tanis]

I have a Mac Mini with an external USB Terratec Aureon card.

The Aureon is connected to the AV receiver (an Onkyo) through a standard TOSLINK optical cable.

I set XBMC 13.1 to output the audio to the SPDIF channel and enabled passthrough and set it so that my receiver can decode DTS and Dolby Digital audio and that it should transcode everything to Dolby Digital.

It works fine with movies that have an AC3 or DTS audio track but I get no audio with movies that have a 2 channels PCM track (or MP3s as well if that matters).

I suppose that XBMC should transcode the PCM audio to Dolby Digital so that my receiver can play it back but it looks like it's not happening. Checking the indicators on the Onkyo tell me that the connection has DTS enabled but no Dolby Digital. On the opposite, if I play an AC3 or DTS movie, I see that it says Dolby Digital as well.

Any idea of what might be wrong?

Thanks!

[Memphiz]

debug log (wiki) - does your amp not allow 2.0 pcm?

[tanis]

I've found the solution but I don't get it. Instead of setting the output and passthrough to "SPDIF", I've set it to "Default" and now everything works fine.

@Memphiz I suppose that my amp doesn't support PCM 2.0 over SPDIF.

[nozomi]

@tanis What setting do you use for "output configuration"?



I've been having the same problem with video streams having mp3 and such audio. I use spdif and previous versions of the audio engine handled this fine.

If I set output configuration to "fixed" I get sound from video streams with mp3, mono.... but then I get no 5.1 from DTS or Dolby in my movies or tv shows.

If I set output configuration to "optimized", "best match" I get 5.1 from DTS or Dolby in my movies or tv shows. but no sound from streams with mp3, mono...

I have tried using "default" and "built in output", "transcoding" on or off etc.




I'm using Snow Leopard, XBMC 13.1 (i386), TOSLINK optical cable to my JVC reciever.

EDIT: LOGS

Output configuration Fixed (sound is working): pastebin
Output configuration Optimized (sound is not working): pastebin

[Memphiz]

nozomi - if you set it to fixed and 96000hz - does the output of mp3 work then or fail? And if it failes - please try the other sample rates and tell me which one worked...

[nozomi]

nozomi - if you set it to fixed and 96000hz - does the output of mp3 work then or fail? And if it failes - please try the other sample rates and tell me which one worked...

Fails, no sound. I think my JVC reciever only can handle 48khz.

EDIT 96 and 88.2 fails, 48 works

[Memphiz]

whats with 44.1

[nozomi]

whats with 44.1

works too

[tanis]

Right now it's set as "best match".

What really made a difference is launching the Audio MIDI Configuration Utility and setting the SPDIF to 2 channels 24bit PCM and 48kHz as frequency.

[Memphiz]

What was it before?

[nozomi]

Right now it's set as "best match".

What really made a difference is launching the Audio MIDI Configuration Utility and setting the SPDIF to 2 channels 24bit PCM and 48kHz as frequency.

I haven't touched my Audio MIDI Configuration and now it's set at 44.1khz. So should I change that to 48, is that safe?

EDIT made no difference for me. still no audio for streams or no 5.1 for DTS or Dolby.

[tanis]

What was it before?

I had it at 2 channels 16 bit PCM at 44.1kHz

[Memphiz]

Well it doesn't matter - XBMC will overwrite this setting anyway ... so your assumption is a coincidence @tanis ... best match should do the trick no matter what is set in audio midi setup.

[tanis]

@Memphiz I guess you're right. AFAIK the real deal was setting the output to "Default" both for the audio output and the passthrough.

[nozomi]

AFAIK the real deal was setting the output to "Default" both for the audio output and the passthrough.

Have you tried playing any video streams that has a very low sample rate audio? Setting both output and passthrough to "default" makes no difference for me, I have to use "fixed" output config for these streams to get audio.