[luthepa1]

Hi all,

Ok something strange going on after upgrading to Babylon 9.04.1. Was running Atlantis without any problems. Problem is audio playback. I had been using a custom alsa .asoundrc file that worked great with my sound card. It would playback through digital coax or spdif out (iec958) all sounds (mono, stereo, AC3, DTS). With this config (attached below) I would in XBMC audio hardware keep the default audio set to "default" and passthrough "iec958". I notice that digital vids did playback sound thus the passthrough device is working. But nothing less as I guess the audio was not being upsampled (e.g. no mp3, stero, mono skin UI sounds). Its real frustrating because its all the same hardware and proven to work.

I did notice that If I change the default audio device in XBMC from "default" to "iec958" that I would then get audio playback for every type of audio file (movies like DivX and mkv, MP3, flv youtube clips, etc) EXCEPT the skins UI sound events like the menu click sound still dont work. So I assume the iec958 sound device is upsampling all but mono sounds?

If anyone can suggest or help me out that would be AWESOME! Also is it possible that alsa is not seeing my .asoundrc file?

And can anyone answer for me; does XBMC Live Babylon use pulseaudio? I have not found any running instance of pulse (terminal command: ps -A) and sudo apt-get purge pulseaudio returns that it is not installed. So I guess something in XBMC 9.04.1 or the newer underlying OS 9.04 that something has changed as everything else on my system is the same.

Oh, and I did notice that the analog 6 channel audio out that uses the 3x 3.5mm jacks, that all sounds work! Even the menu click sounds in the UI. However I want to use the spdif or coax digital outputs, not the analog outputs.

Appreciate any help. Thanks.

1. Running Babylon 9.04.1 XBMC Live HDD install
2. Therefore OS is Jaunty 9.04 32bit (Linux XBMCLive 2.6.28-11-generic)
3. CPU: P4HT x32 bit i686, 1Gb RAM, NVidia 9400GT /w VDPAU, PCI
CMI8738 6 channel sound card
4. Install Method (XBMC Live CD install to HDD)
5. SVN Revision (r20654 - 25May2009)

Code:

# Override the default output used by ALSA.
# If you do not override the default, your default
# device is identical to the (unmixed) analog device
# shown below. If you prefer mixed and/or digital
# output, uncomment the appropriate four lines below
# (only one slave.pcm line).
# DrP - This config gave me playback on my digital out
#     (S/PDIF) of mono, stereo, AC3, DTS
#    (e.g. mono wav file, MP3, DivX /w MP3 audio,
#    DivX /w AC3 audio, etc) with Linux XBMC being
#    issues for no playback of particular formats.
#    XBMC set to default for audio device and set to
#    iec958 for digital passthrough device.  Also
#    Ubuntu set to iec958 in media selector for system.

### Currently set w/digital-hw as the default output,
### comment out this entire section to use unmixed
### analog as your default
### -jarod
pcm.!default {
    type plug
    ## Uncomment the following to use mixed analog by default
    # slave.pcm "dmix-analog"
    ## Uncomment the following to use unmixed digital by default
    #slave.pcm "digital-hw"
    ## Uncomment the following to use mixed digital by default
    slave.pcm "dmix-digital"
}

# Alias for analog output on the Audigy (hw:0,0)
# - This is identical to the device named "default"--which
# always exists and refers to hw:0,0 (unless overridden)
# - Therefore, we can specify "hw:0,0", "default", or "analog"
# to access analog output on the Audigy
pcm.analog {
    type plug
    slave.pcm "analog-hw"
}

# Control device (mixer, etc.) for the Audigy card
ctl.analog {
    type hw
    card 0
}

# Alias for (rate-converted) mixed analog output on the
# Audigy (hw:0,0)
# - This will accept audio input--regardless of rate--and
# convert to the rate required for the dmix plugin
# (in this case 48000Hz)
pcm.mixed-analog {
    type plug
    slave.pcm "dmix-analog"
}

# Control device (mixer, etc.) for the Audigy card
ctl.mixed-analog {
    type hw
    card 0
}

# Alias for (rate-converted) digital (S/PDIF) output on the
# Audigy (hw:0,0)
# - This will accept audio input--regardless of rate--and
# convert to the rate required for the S/PDIF hardware
# (in this case 48000Hz)
pcm.digital {
    type plug
    slave.pcm "digital-hw"
}

# Control device (mixer, etc.) for the Audigy card
ctl.digital {
    type hw
    card 0
}

# Alias for mixed (rate-converted) digital (S/PDIF) output on the
# Audigy (hw:0,0)
# - This will accept audio input--regardless of rate--and
# convert to the rate required for the S/PDIF hardware
# (in this case 48000Hz)
pcm.mixed-digital {
    type plug
    slave.pcm "dmix-digital"
}

# Control device (mixer, etc.) for the Audigy card
ctl.mixed-digital {
    type hw
    card 0
}

# The following devices are not useful by themselves. They
# require specific rates, channels, and formats. Therefore,
# you probably do not want to use them directly. Instead use
# any of the devices defined above.
# Alias for analog output on the Audigy (hw:0,0)
# Do not use this directly--it requires specific rate,
# channels, and format
pcm.analog-hw {
    type hw
    card 0
    # The default value for device is 0, so no need to specify
}

# Control device (mixer, etc.) for the Audigy card
    ctl.analog-hw {
    type hw
    card 0
}

# Alias for digital (S/PDIF) output on the Audigy (hw:0,0)
# Do not use this directly--it requires specific rate,
# channels, and format
pcm.digital-hw {
    type hw
    card 0
    # device 0
    device 2 #DrP - Dev2 usually Digital out on sound cards
}

# Control device (mixer, etc.) for the Audigy card
ctl.digital-hw {
    type hw
    card 0
}

# Direct software mixing plugin for analog output on
# the Audigy (hw:0,0)
# Do not use this directly--it requires specific rate,
# channels, and format
pcm.dmix-analog {
    type dmix
    ipc_key 1234
    slave {
        pcm "analog-hw"
        period_time 0
        period_size 1024
        buffer_size 4096
        rate 48000
    }
}

# Control device (mixer, etc.) for the Audigy card
ctl.dmix-analog {
    type hw
    card 0
}

# Direct software mixing plugin for digital (S/PDIF) output
# on the Audigy (hw:0,0)
# Do not use this directly--it requires specific rate,
# channels, and format
pcm.dmix-digital {
    type dmix
    ipc_key 1235
    slave {
        pcm "digital-hw"
        period_time 0
        period_size 1024
        buffer_size 4096
        rate 48000
    }
}

# Control device (mixer, etc.) for the Audigy card
ctl.dmix-digital {
    type hw
    card 0
}

[davilla]

skins UI sound events (GUI sounds) are not supported using passthrough.

[luthepa1]

Oh... ok. Is this a new change since Atlantis? It all worked before and my alsa config should not pass anything through the "passthrough" device unless the media is encoded that way (HD movie or something). I thought from my config that the UI sounds would be upsampled to stereo or something to pass it through the default audio device of XBMC and as I say it all worked before. I just not a expert on alsa.

Also should sound just work "out of the box" so to speak? Does anyone else have to make custom alsa config files?

I still have this feeling that the system is not recognising my alsa config or that I need to change my alsa config as perhaps alsa has changed some what in Jaunty?

anyway thanks for your feedback :-)