[wisenheimer]

Quick Background: After hearing forever about how great XBMC is, I figured I'd try it out. I DL'ed The XBMC Live .iso, burned it and used it to install XBMC 9.11 on a 8GB USB drive. The PC boots from the USB drive and I'm in... so far, so good. I then hooked up a 500GB external drive full of my DVD rips. I went to the "Video" screen and there was the drive. Great! But when I went to play a movie (.VOB files), no sound. While the picture looks good, the message reads "Failed to Initialize Audio Device."

I am using an older HP DC5000 SFF PC. It did not have digital audio when I got it so I added a "Siig SoundWave 5.1 PCI-LP Sound Card - Tremor + 16xx - PCI - 20 bit - Internal" Card. I have the SPDIF (optical) output hooked into my JVC receiver. I know the card works, as I get Dolby Digital when playing the same file using Media Player Classic, VLC and Media Center 2005 from within Win XP.

I have been through the forums and do not see the solution, but I certainly cannot be the first fellow to have a digital/SPDIF dilemma. Unfortunately, I know JACK about XBMC.

Does anyone know the solution? Thank you in advance for any help you can lend.

[d_schrute]

i dont know much about the live distro, but can you run the alsamixer from a command prompt?
D

[solem]

I had similar problems. First try setting audio output device and pass-through device to iec958. If this doesn't work open console and type "aplay -L". You should see your audio device at the end with a iec958 prefix. Back in XBMC set your audio device to custom and type in the aplay info, i.e. "plug:iec958:CARD=S51,DEV=0". Do the same for pass-through and type "iec958:CARD=S51,DEV=0".

[wisenheimer]

As a complete newbie, I am not sure what "open console" means (cue embarrassment), but I will try this when I get home. Thanks for responding!

Since I am running this outside of the Windows OS, are the sound card drivers inherent in XBMC?

[rrambo]

As a complete newbie, I am not sure what "open console" means (cue embarrassment), but I will try this when I get home. Thanks for responding!

Since I am running this outside of the Windows OS, are the sound card drivers inherent in XBMC?

I always have a problem when installing Ubuntu and then xbmc, but with the live distro, they've (xbmc) pretty much got it fixed..

Under System settings in xbmc, did you set audio device to digital and and then output device and passthru device to your card? (or iec958) That's all I've had to do with the live version with 2 different sound cards..

[wisenheimer]

HOT DAMN! That did it! solem, it was just like you said! I figured out how to get to console and find the card info. Mine was like yours except "ICE1724" instead of S51.

Thank you very much!!! I NEVER would have figured that one out!

Thanks to everyone who cared enough to post a solution.

[solem]

Glad it worked

Note: If you still get "audio failed to initialize" on some files, try setting either "audio device" or "pass-through device" to just iec958 (from the pre-defined choices). Good thing is XBMC will still remember your custom setting if you have to change it back again.