[MERGED] XBMC Digital Output / SoundBlaster Problems
#31
natethomas,
I did unselect "adjust refresh rate" but it seemed to make no difference. I really believe that xbmc is choking on its communication with my sound card. As a matter of fact, the compile I did last night had a new popup that came up just as a movie was starting to play and it said "Unable to initialize audio card' or something like that, so this makes me even more confident that its an x-fi/XBMC compatibility issue. Any other suggestions you have are appreciated!!!
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#32
Phi2039,
I was curious if you may have any other ideas I could try to get my x-fi xtreme audio working correctly with XBMC. If I can't get it to work by the weekend, I'm going to return it and buy an x-fi titanuim fatal1ty pro which works for natethomas. I read the wikipedia page on the x-fi series

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X-Fi#X-Fi_Xtreme_Audio

and apparently the x-fi xtreme audio is not actually in the x-fi family of audio cards, instead it is a repackaged Audigy card. Additionally this card seems to have all sorts of issues in general use.
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#33
Question 
All,

I just came into posession of an old Soundblaster Live! Value sound card. It has an SPDIF connector on it that appears to require a 1/8" to RCA adapter so I can plug it into my receiver. Has anyone succesfully used one of these cards with XBMC to pass AC3/DTS 5.1 to their receiver? Any assistance is appreciated!

Thanks
Pasqual
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#34
Thanks Pasqualz, i will seek you guys on IRC again to do some extra testing on new code with my setup.

Lou
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#35
I have tried everything to make this card work with SPDIF with XBMC on windows, without success. I finally bought a Soundblaster X-Fi Xtreme Audio, which works fine with 8.10 release.

(Tried the latest windows build this evening, but unfortunately no DTS/AC3 passtrough. Hope this will be fixed before the next official release)

Maybe you get lucky, but I wasn't even able to download proper drivers for the old card from the Creative site.
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#36
Mart!,

How odd! I bought an x-fi xtreme Audio last week and could not get it to pass through AC3 or DTS. Did you have to do anything out of the ordinary to get it to workHuh I directed Phi2039 to this request because he's the current windows XBMC audio guru. He tried helping me to get my x-fi xtreme audio working the other night with no success. Any further info you could give about how you went about installing teh card and getting it to work would be much appreciated!!!
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#37
Exclamation 
I've been working with computers for over 16 years, so I'll be the first one to tell you that you are not guaranteed to get the same exact results in an application even if you run it on two identical systems. Having said that, I'm a bit disturbed by a reply to this thread that I posted today

http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?tid=46827

I was asking if Anyone got a SB Live! card with SPDIF out to work passing through AC3/DTS, and Mart! replies and says that he couldn't, but he's now using an x-fi xtreme Audio card on XBMC v8.1 with no issues!!! Aggghhhhhhh! I hate computers.

Phi2039, can you think of any reason why this works for him, but not us?

Thanks All!
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#38
xbmc 8.10 final works for me with ac3/dts passthrough on xfi elite pro, but newer svn builds didnt
something happens on svn after 8.10 final
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#39
Mart! Please post a debug log (from the SVN build) to pastebin. I would like to compare it to the issues being experienced by pasqualz.
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#40
Well, now I'm very frystrated! I uninstalled the drivers for my x-fi xtreme audio card thsi evening and then swapped it out for an x-fi titanium fatal1ty pro edition. After installing the latest drivers and console application from the creative website, I was excited to see more options for this card, however, i still do not see any option in the creative application to allow SPDIF passthrough. When I play an AC3 encoded DVD rip I only get sound from the front left and froont right channels and it seems that the other channels are mixed down into these channels also. I'm aware of an option people have spoken about called "mixdown into stereo" or something similar, but I don't see thsi option anywhere yet it seems like that's what the card is doing. Does anyone else have thsi card and if so, do you have the SPDIF pass through or stereo upmix optionsHuh
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#41
I am using the same soundcard on a vista home premium system - I have not experienced this problem. The only times it is lagging is when vista starts doing its stuff (cleanup, indexing, defragging, scanning for malware - but you can indentify that by the sound of your harddisk).

But I do have problems with the card. I run digital out (optical) and all 5.1 / dts and even 2.0 dvd's sounds just fine - but all and I do mean all music (mp3, wma) and all apple trailers is so low in volume that I have to turn my reciever way up to hear if it is actually working. Anyone have the same problem and know a way out or arround it?

Thanks
/needtotest
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#42
pasqualz Wrote:Well, now I'm very frystrated! I uninstalled the drivers for my x-fi xtreme audio card thsi evening and then swapped it out for an x-fi titanium fatal1ty pro edition. After installing the latest drivers and console application from the creative website, I was excited to see more options for this card, however, i still do not see any option in the creative application to allow SPDIF passthrough. When I play an AC3 encoded DVD rip I only get sound from the front left and froont right channels and it seems that the other channels are mixed down into these channels also. I'm aware of an option people have spoken about called "mixdown into stereo" or something similar, but I don't see thsi option anywhere yet it seems like that's what the card is doing. Does anyone else have thsi card and if so, do you have the SPDIF pass through or stereo upmix optionsHuh

Before answering this question, it may be worth examining the various steps required to make everything work.

At present 5.1 sound doesn't work very in xbmc using anything other than passthrough. This, hopefully, will be fixed relatively soon. So...

First, go to the Creative Audio Control Panel. Go to the Speakers tab. Make sure speaker configuration is 5.1 Speakers. I'm not sure what SVM is, but I have it turned off.

Next, go to the Encoder tab. Sometimes it takes a second to switch to this tab. Be patient. Make sure Dolby Digital Live and DTS Connect are both turned off.

That should be all you need to do from this area. Close the control panel.

Now, right click on the little speaker next to your clock and select "playback devices." At least, this is what you click in Vista. If you use XP, I imagine it should be something similar.

There should be two devices listed. Speakers and SPDIF Out. You want to set SPDIF Out as the default.

Now, open XBMC. Go Settings--> Videos--> Player --> Configure Audio Hardware. Switch Audio Output to Digital. Check either or both of the boxes, depending on what kind of audio your receiver can decode. Leave "audio output device" as Primary Sound Driver.

Finally, if your speaker system can handle both DTS and Dolby Digital, you are done. If they can't do one or the other, make sure "downmix multi-channel audio to stereo" is selected. This option became available as of rev18445. Ikon has uploaded that rev.

Then you should be done. If this was already your exact setup, or you are using something other than Vista, we'll have to talk more.
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#43
natethomas, thanks for the steps, but I don't have a Dolby Digital Live or DTS connect option on my creative audio control panel. I also don't have an option for playback devices on my taskbar speaker icon. It seems that certain options that others see are not available for me. maybe it's some other hardware on my Dell interferingHuh
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#44
You didn't answer my question. Do you use XP or Vista?
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#45
Oh, and the Digital Live and DTS Connect things might only be available via download from Creative's website. As the proud owner of an X-Fi Titanium Fatality pro, you should be able to download them for free.

Edit: However, because they won't help you right now, it's fine that they don't show up. If they don't show up in the first place, then they shouldn't act as the problem.

Did you follow the remaining steps outlined? I want to be sure the XBMC side of things is configured properly.
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[MERGED] XBMC Digital Output / SoundBlaster Problems0