[bartdesign]

Allot of people are having sound problems with the 17700 build. Maybe you experience the same or a related problem?

http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?tid=45471

[topfs2]

yeah PulseAudio is supposed to work with XBMC in svn, it works for me flawlessly but there are users having problems with it on fedora.

Which I´m currently debugging, but the issue is only regarding paplayer. dvdplayer should work.

[soder]

Allot of people are having sound problems with the 17700 build. Maybe you experience the same or a related problem?

http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?tid=45471

No, I had the same problem with earlier builds.
So, is PulseAudio better? Shall i switch back?

/Söder

[topfs2]

No, I had the same problem with earlier builds.
So, is PulseAudio better? Shall i switch back?

/Söder

Well you wont benefit anything besides network transparency with pulseaudio versus alsa.

Although pulseaudio integrates natively with ubuntu and thats why the support is needed, if you have a dedicated HTPC which you wont send the audio to another PC then ALSA vs PulseAudio is just the one that works the best.

Also you could try the patch supplied in http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?p=2...post284553 as it helps the fedora issue, the patch is not prime ready and produces heaps of logg so dont use it on production machines but it proves if the fix helps ubuntu aswell.

Cheers,
Tobias

[uomiarz]

How is Jaunty with pulse audio and alsa bug?
Same issues as Interpid ?

Thx

[bartdesign]

Jup

[Peevy]

So I've got Ubuntu Jaunty running quite smoothly now & I must say it was the easiest install of Ubuntu I've had yet (not to say my previous installs were difficult). Even setting up Xbmc & my MCE remote seemed a lot easier this time. The only real hurdle that remains is passthrough for AC3 & DTS.

So Ive tried pretty much everything I can think of to get passthrough on Jaunty but nothing works like it did on Hardy. Updated to the latest pulseaudio & alsa. tried many different sound configurations.

Through Google I've found out that pulseaudio is heavily integrated with Ubuntu Jaunty so just killing pulseaudio doesn't seem to work (at least not for me).
I've also tried a few of the suggested ways to get passthrough in Ubuntu but most seem to be for earlier versions of Ubuntu.

So Has anyone had any success getting passthrough working in Jaunty, & how??

[topfs2]

So I've got Ubuntu Jaunty running quite smoothly now & I must say it was the easiest install of Ubuntu I've had yet (not to say my previous installs were difficult). Even setting up Xbmc & my MCE remote seemed a lot easier this time. The only real hurdle that remains is passthrough for AC3 & DTS.

So Ive tried pretty much everything I can think of to get passthrough on Jaunty but nothing works like it did on Hardy. Updated to the latest pulseaudio & alsa. tried many different sound configurations.

Through Google I've found out that pulseaudio is heavily integrated with Ubuntu Jaunty so just killing pulseaudio doesn't seem to work (at least not for me).
I've also tried a few of the suggested ways to get passthrough in Ubuntu but most seem to be for earlier versions of Ubuntu.

So Has anyone had any success getting passthrough working in Jaunty, & how??

PulseAudio doesn't support digital and passthrough, one of the biggest drawbacks with PulseAudio. Unforgivable drawback TBH

But killall pulseaudio or sudo killall -9 pulseaudio should kill it off, it's not that integrated so that won't work. XBMC is able to do fallbacks to alsa safely for it, you might f**k up the other apps though by doing it

[Da_dego]

So I've got Ubuntu Jaunty running quite smoothly now & I must say it was the easiest install of Ubuntu I've had yet (not to say my previous installs were difficult). Even setting up Xbmc & my MCE remote seemed a lot easier this time. The only real hurdle that remains is passthrough for AC3 & DTS.

So Ive tried pretty much everything I can think of to get passthrough on Jaunty but nothing works like it did on Hardy. Updated to the latest pulseaudio & alsa. tried many different sound configurations.

Through Google I've found out that pulseaudio is heavily integrated with Ubuntu Jaunty so just killing pulseaudio doesn't seem to work (at least not for me).
I've also tried a few of the suggested ways to get passthrough in Ubuntu but most seem to be for earlier versions of Ubuntu.

So Has anyone had any success getting passthrough working in Jaunty, & how??

You'll have to forgive me, but through your post I can't tell what you're trying to pass through TO? I spent a week figuring out how to get proper output to HDMI on Jaunty, but I've figured it out and will be posting a How-to both here and on the tech site I write for (Techgage.com).

I'll be releasing a whole series of how-tos there that should cover common issues setting up an HTPC here that I've had to cobble together from various forum posts.

If you can tell me what you're trying to pass through to, I can probably help you on Jaunty. It's roughly all the same but it's an important series of steps.

I'll look for a reply and give you as much help as I can!

(In the meantime, can someone walk me through the CritSec "destroyed section" bug aside from "remove Pulse Audio"? I keep getting stupid random crashes after the system has sat for a while or on trying to start up videos - but it's intermittent, random and without a whole lot of ability to reproduce consistently, and Pulse isn't running)

[topfs2]

...
(In the meantime, can someone walk me through the CritSec "destroyed section" bug aside from "remove Pulse Audio"? I keep getting stupid random crashes after the system has sat for a while or on trying to start up videos - but it's intermittent, random and without a whole lot of ability to reproduce consistently, and Pulse isn't running)

Then it's not a pulse audio sound issue, please post elsewere about this.

[Peevy]

Thanks Da_dego

Im trying to get AC3 & DTS to passthrough digitally to my Surround Amp which has a built in decoder. I used to be able to do this with Hardy no problem. killing pulseaudio doesn't work & there's only an option for digital stereo in the pulseaudio settings.

[omnibrown]

I had the same issue with PluseAudio. I've got a work around going now. No sound in the XBMC menu, but pass through is ok.

play -l

Code:

**** List of PLAYBACK Hardware Devices ****
card 0: NVidia [HDA NVidia], device 0: ALC888 Analog [ALC888 Analog]
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 0: NVidia [HDA NVidia], device 1: ALC888 Digital [ALC888 Digital]
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 0: NVidia [HDA NVidia], device 3: NVIDIA HDMI [NVIDIA HDMI]
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 1: CMI8768 [C-Media CMI8768], device 0: CMI8738-MC8 [C-Media PCI DAC/ADC]
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 1: CMI8768 [C-Media CMI8768], device 1: CMI8738-MC8 [C-Media PCI 2nd DAC]
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 1: CMI8768 [C-Media CMI8768], device 2: CMI8738-MC8 [C-Media PCI IEC958]
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0

I want to use my C-Media S/PDIF which is the last device listed, so in .asoundrc:

Code:

pcm.!default iec958:CMI8768

Then I launch XBMC from the command line:

Code:

SDL_AUDIODRIVER=alsa xbmc

XBMC has audio device setting set to default.

Watched a 720p AC3 mvk last night, getting choppy video and audio and sync issues, but pass through works.

[Peevy]

Thanks omnibrown.
I have come across this work around on the Ubuntu Forum.

Watched a 720p AC3 mvk last night, getting choppy video and audio and sync issues, but pass through works.

I don't like the sound of that though, so Im willing to stick with the lack of spdif passthrough until someone comes up with a more solid work around. Or just maybe someday pulseaudio will actually support spdif passthrough.

I don't understand why Ubuntu decided to rely so heavily on pulseaudio for audio integration so soon since it clearly doesn't support all audio types such as AC3 & DTS passthrough to a surround Amp from spdif.

I know from googling for tips on building a HTPC a lot of people use Ubuntu/Mythbuntu as there OS. All this workaround stuff shouldn't have to be done, it should just work.

Well thats enough ranting from me. I know this isn't an XBMC problem but its a problem none the less. Im off to complain at Ubuntu lol.

[Da_dego]

Finally getting back to this, sorry Peevy.

Here's what I've done, and it has worked - I gave it a go on three different boxes sitting around. Tried a clean Jaunty install on each of them (updated at install to newest version). My XBMC was whatever was built on Apr 29 2009.

1) Update Alsa using the script
2) Update Pulseaudio to the PPAs from Luke (Might as well have the latest version, I just did my best to disable, not remove).
3) nano /etc/pulse/client.conf - look for "autospawn=yes", change to "autospawn=no". Reboot or simply restart x
4) nano /etc/asound.conf - quite possible this file doesn't even exist until you do this.
For HDMI out, you need to type:

Code:

pcm.!default {
  type plug
  slave {
     pcm "hdmi"
   }
}

For spdif, your line "should' work fine. Mine actually worked out of the box via spdif, but I didn't get 5.1 surround - only stereo. So, in the same file (right under the above code), retype the same "type ..." crap, but in between:

Code:

pcm.!surround51 {
}

instead of pcm.!default.

5) sudo alsa force-restart.
5.5) type alsamixer from the command prompt and go through the different selections. anything that you see "MM" on the bottom of, hit the M key when it's highlighted. It should change to 00 and be green. ALL OF YOUR SURROUND CHANNELS ARE MUTED BY DEFAULT.

You should now have stereo sound going through your surround, including interface clicks and startup music, etc. However, it's all only stereo even though you've unmuted the other channels. Haven't figured this glitch out yet.

6) here's where I only found the directions by accident stumbling through forums. Rather than relying on a bunch of voodoo fake names strewn throughout the system like "hdmi" or "spdif" or "intel958", type

Code:

aplay -l

and look for the specific output you want to use. For most onboard sound, SPDIF is card 0, device 2. HDMI seems typically card 0, device 3.

7) Load up XBMC, go to audio. under default device AND passthrough device, type

Code:

plughw:x,y

where x is the card # (almost always 0 for onboard) and y is the device number from aplay.

This has worked on three boards - one ATI audio, one intel audio, and one NV audio. There are still issues where speakertest -c6 at the command prompt only provides stereo output, but that is an ubuntu/pulse/alsa issue and has nothing to do with functional use of XBMC. Make sure you're aware of your receiver's capabilities as well, as I spent probably a good 10 minutes wondering why I wasn't getting surround on some videos but it worked on others, then realized "Duh, my TV doesn't have DTS support and I'm feeding through that."

I have NO slowdown on my actual htpc (the NV audio one), CPUs running very low load due to VDPAU. Output of both audio and video are through the HDMI. Decodes 1080p and 720p without a hiccup streaming the file off of my server over the network, so I'm not sure what all this "choppy" and "slowdown" stuff is that some are experiencing. Actually, the thing has less hiccups than my PS3 or my motorola cable box.


As a side note, pulseaudio is not entirely disabled and is still causing *minor* problems on each of these installs. Crossfading of music produces "cannot initialize audio device" until the first track stops, and I get a few 'critsec' errors. I may try a full recompile of xbmc instead of a ppa build and tag it to ignore pulseaudio like in the "clean install" on the wiki. Help would be appreciated but I will start a thread re: that, as trying to kill pulse altogether in any of my jaunty installs has resulted in a dead xserver that has no screen output - hence why I'm not recommending it here.

And thank you to the xbmc team. Seriously, you guys rock. Even my wife loves the HTPC now.

[xanadu1979]

Jaunty seems to have an issue that a lot of people are running into where the master volume is set at 0% when booting up. I had the issue myself and there's a bug report in Launchpad with a lot of responses. Upgrading pulse and/or alsa doesn't fix it.

Turns out the fix is to get rid of PulseAudio. Here's a guide on how to do it in Jaunty. It worked great for me.
http://idyllictux.wordpress.com/2009/04/...io-at-bay/

Here's the Launchpad bug:
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+sourc...bug/352732

Just an FYI in case anyone else runs into this.