AC-3 5.1 audio issues?

I am running XBMC v9.04.1 on a Dual 2.0 Ghz G5 running OS 10.5.6. I have my computer connected via optical out my HT processor, the Theta Casablanca III. I have been trying to play dvd's and .mkv files using XBMC and while I am not having any issues with he video I am having issues with the audio. In XBMC settings, I have selected digital in the audio output section and have DD and DTS selected, under audio output device I have selected built-in output and I have downmix multichannel un-selected. While playing a movie I see that the audio stream is AC3 5.1 and audio output is set to digital. All I hear from my speakers is a high pitch chattering. This happens with all of the movies I try to play through XBMC. If I play the same movies through VLC or the dvd player app. I get dts and dd 5.1 working just fine. Any ideas?

Thanks,
Steve

As far as I understand it, Macs won't send 5.1/DTS. You have to use analog output. Otherwise, you just get static and noise. I seem to remember that there is a hack to get it to work, but I got very mixed results from it and disabled it. Here's an article that explains the issue.

476429 Wrote:As far as I understand it, Macs won't send 5.1/DTS. You have to use analog output. Otherwise, you just get static and noise. I seem to remember that there is a hack to get it to work, but I got very mixed results from it and disabled it. Here's an article that explains the issue.

Not true, 5.1 and dts are wrapped in a special way in XBMC code. It does work, I just can't remember if the wrapping was in XBMC v9.04.1

Cool! That's good to know. I'll give it a try when the next version is officially released (as I fear nightly builds :-).

476429 Wrote:Cool! That's good to know. I'll give it a try when the next version is officially released (as I fear nightly builds :-).

lol, never fear the reaper.

so how do you get 5.1 from xmbc?

Probably doesn't work with v9.04.1
You need to try with a recent build. But there is no nightly build for ppc...
Will make one available soon, so that you can give it a try.

Have the audio issues been fixed with version 9.1.1

speters415 Wrote:Have the audio issues been fixed with version 9.1.1

I just tried it and no. No more clicking, but no sound at all if the only track is AC3 passthru :-(

AllanMarcus Wrote:I just tried it and no. No more clicking, but no sound at all if the only track is AC3 passthru :-(

More info please, You can start by giving more info, what mac, what OSX version, posting to pastebin the xbmc.log file is always helpful so we can see exactly what is going on.