[Sergeleon]

Ok, I have read the posts you link me above and have understood all. You are absolutely right. Now I have so many job to do! But I thought AC3Filter is a open-source program that don't upmix stereo to 5.1. But how to say in Russia - God protects those who takes care itself, so I will check up.

[Sergeleon]

Ok, I have 5.1 DD and DTS in MPC, WinDVD on Windows XP, I have multi-channel sound in Windows Vista, but I still failed to initialize audio with XBMC. Any suggestion?

[joshuass]

Interesting, I'm not able to get Vista to have multichannel audio through HDMI at all.

And ATI/nVidia supply their own drivers for HDMI sound.

If you have a card that has HDMI chances are good you have 2 sound devices, one on the motherboard (if it has onboard sound), and one on the gfx card.

Installing drivers for the onboard sound will not also work for the GFX card sound.

I read a bit on AMD support pages and found that XP does support HDMI audio.

If you haven't done this I would try the following:
1. Uninstall all sound-related drivers and graphics drivers.
2. Install the latest Catalyst driver suite from ATI. At this point you should have 2 audio devices: a Microsoft HD sound device (using default drivers from XP)--this is your motherboard device and an ATI HDMI sound device.
3. Don't bother installing drivers for the onboard device, you aren't gonna be using it.
4. This is where I might be wrong since I don't run vista. Make sure Windows is using the ATI device as the primary sound device. Go to the speaker settings and toy with those. Verify that windows can output to a 5.1 setup. Check for any kind of options that tell Windows to "pass through" DTS/DD5.1 audio (there may not be any options). There may even be some kind of setting in the Catalyst suite.
5. In XBMC verify that its using either the primary sound device (what windows is using) or the ATI HDMI audio device specifically.
6. Enable pass through of DTS and DD5.1 in XBMC.

If none of this works. The final step is to google for UAA HDMI driver for Microsoft. In a support page on AMD for Catalyst 9.1 this was needed to get sound over HDMI.

EDIT:
I don't think AC3Filter is gonna help in this case. Reason is that XBMC is not using direct show filters. AC3Filter uses direct show to encode on-the-fly AC3 streams if I remember correctly.

EDIT 2:
Googling about HDMI audio for ATI. The device as shown under "Audio and Speaker Settings" in the control panel may be called something like "ATI HD Rear Output". This is the one you will want to select for windows.

EDIT 3:
See this link about what your ATI card supports. Also pay attention to the notes at the bottom, particularly #2 as I think your Yamaha receiver might be affected by this.

[Sergeleon]

Thank you for your reply! Now I have one sound device in my system, I have disabled the motherboard audio chipset from the BIOS. With latest Catalyst driver I have ATI HD Rear Output in my system, but there is no 5.1 sound, only with Realtek driver for HDMI audio. I have Windows XP SP3, so no need for a UAA HDMI driver for Microsoft. And I read what the latest 9.1 ATI Drivers have resolved this issue for Yamaha receivers.

[Fabry]

Hello to everyone,
I'm experiencing in the same issue:
when I switch to the digital audio output playing an AC3 or DTS movie I catch the message: UNABLE TO INITIALIZE AUDIO DEVICE.
In analog mode all works fine (in stereo)

my configuration is:

AMD Athlon XP 3100+
ASUS A7v880 Motherboard
ADI AD1888 SoundMAX with SPDIF out onboard
Ge-force 5700 FX DVI->HDMI on Plasma 50' 720p
Windows XP SP3
Direct-X 9
XBMC 9.04.1 repack2 BUILD 24368 (tried both OpenGL and Direct-X versions)

I confirm that with other applications (VLC and Mediaplayer) the SPDIF out works fine.
For the log:
http://pastebin.com/m515e6b4e

Please help me... I cannot use XBMC in my HTPC in this way

[Sergeleon]

Just use MediaPortal, it's more flexible.

[Fabry]

Effectly I'm using Meedio up to now,
but unfortunally it will not supported by developers and is not so complete and looking inpressive as XBMC.

Another point that i love of XBMC is the possibility to pass all info about the media via the .nfo file.

If anyone have a solution for the 5.1 issue on the soundmax,
I'll consider to buy an external audio card instead use the motherboard one.

Fabry

[Sergeleon]

Do you think it's a correct decision? It would be better if developers make normal audio settings, after all they have already done with video section. Yes, I'm agree XBMC is looking more impressive than MediaPortal but I prefer functionality! I want 5.1 sound and I get it, I prefer watch the movie not a beautiful skin of XBMC. It is more all than me upsets that the problem does not dare. Take a look at Boxee, similar source code, similar problem with spidf output.

[Fabry]

I solved the problem !!!
This is the solution that I found. It can be useful for other people.
I merged some and some informations found in internet.

1) Download the soundmax drivers "SoundMax AD1888 Audio Driver V5.12.1.5410" (search in google)

2) Explode the files into a temp directory

3) Into SMAXWDM/W2K_XP dir, replace the aeaudio.sys , the smsens.sys and add the smwdmVI3.inf from your original Mobo CD.

4) Delete soundmax completely. Delete from "Add remove program" then in device manager and all soundmax dir in program files. Reboot

5) Install the new soundmax drivers from your temp dir using the setup.exe (in my case it worked fine). Reboot when requested.

6) Enable SPDIF from the soundmax panel.

7) Now XBMC switch the audio in Digital mode without errors and the Amplifier shows DD Ac3 or DTS with perfect sound.

The only problem that is still there :
starting the AC3 movie with the audio set in digital often didn't work.
You have to switch in analog and back in digital to ear something.

I set the analog audio by default and then switch in digital after the movie start. I this way the SPDIF works perfectly.

Better than nothing.

Sorry for my english, I'm italian....
I hope that it can you help....

[Sergeleon]

Another point that i love of XBMC is the possibility to pass all info about the media via the .nfo file.

It's not a problem for MediaPortal! Please give me more arguments!
The big minus of XBMC is a spidf output.

[medyaye]

hi everyone,

i just move from vista to seven, and from babylon to camelot.

Under Vista and Babylon, the ac3/dts passthrough function and my terratec pci 5.1 spidf output worked well (my av receiver show a nice ac3 or dts logo). Under seven and Camelot, only stereo sound is effective thourgh my digital out.

If i uncheck ac3 and dts capabilities in xbmc audio setting, the sound is here but in stereo...

Config
Intel Core2Duo 5200
2Go DRRII
asus p5gc mx133
terratec 5.1 PCI
Windows Seven
XBMC Camelot without any upgrade.

Thx for your help

edit :

i've read the entire topic and found that ma sound card is based on C-Media 8738 chipset. So i used the CMIDriver-1.2.6-bin-x86-WaveRT (this guy IS a genius) and now, everything work fine.

[DannyBoy999]

I notice this mainly appears to be affecting people with Windows install (and note also a few people saying its not a Linux problem), but I can confirm I get the same error when trying to play a 5.1 encoded divx movie via xbmc on Ubuntu (10.04). The movie plays but I get "Unable to initialize the audio device", and no sound.

[patho]

I know this is an old thread but I've been having this issue on windows 7 64 and I finally solved it. Open up the properties of your HDMI audio device and on the advanced tab make sure to check to allow applications to take exclusive mode. This solved it for me !