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[AppleTV2] HOW-TO to enable AC3 and DTS output for Apple TV 2
#1
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Just tinkered around a bit in /var/mobile/Library/Preferences/XBMC/userdata/guisettings.xml and flipped these two on, hoping it'd work, and it did:

In the <audiooutput> section, change "false" to "true" on the following entries:

<ac3passthrough>false</ac3passthrough>
<dtspassthrough>false</dtspassthrough>

I am now getting AC3 passed through from the SPDIF out to my 7.1 receiver. Overall video playback is also a lot smoother now that it's not downmixing to 2.0 audio it seems.

HTH.
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#2
DTS passthrough works too, just to close the loop on that one. I am happy with the results of this simple tweak.

HTH.
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#3
Well that's magical, I'm pretty sure I read a post by someone responsible for porting xbmc to ios that it didn't work and the reason turns out to be a malformed preference file? Sweet.
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#4
I actually also flipped on the AAC passthrough since the ATV2 hardware seems to support some/all of the codec; leafing through my video library for some AAC-encoded stuff right now.
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#5
what about thru hdmi?
Nvidia Shield with Kodi 18
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#6
I don't have an HDMI-capable receiver or plasma, running it HDMI to DVI-D and using the SPDIF to go to the receiver. Others may be able to confirm whether HDMI also passes the multichannel streams.

HTH.
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#7
Excellent find!

I have a slightly unrelated question.

Is there anything in the settings that can be tweaked to fix the downmixing problem? My entire library is in 5.1 and the Apple TV is for the secondary TV in the house. Dont really want a surround sound system in there so I depend upon downmixing for this to me useful.

Would really appreciate the help.

Thanks!
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#8
Just checked it. Works!
Thank you!
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#9
Rauf27 Wrote:Just checked it. Works!
Thank you!

Works for hdmi too?
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#10
johoja Wrote:Works for hdmi too?

My atv connected to home theater by optical audio cable.
During video playback i checked audio output - optical/coax and hdmi.
Same result for each selection. Full 5.1 sound.
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#11
FWIW, and somewhat as expected turning on AAC passthrough results in no sound. However, turning AAC passthrough off but leaving AC3 and DTS passthrough on results in multichannel AAC also being output. My receiver picked it up as DD5.1, XBMC Audio settings labeled it Unknown 5.1 surround. Good enough for me, just about all my content plays in multichannel now.
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#12
We see everything Smile

https://github.com/xbmc/atv2/commit/e42e...41e7669697

It was hidden to keep the testing matrix small for the first release.
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#13
For me the setting doesnt work. I got no sound with this on true. HDMI or optical. Any suggestions?
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#14
davilla Wrote:We see everything Smile

https://github.com/xbmc/atv2/commit/e42e...41e7669697

It was hidden to keep the testing matrix small for the first release.
Other than a genius, Davilla, you are seriously evil too! Big Grin
For troubleshooting and bug reporting please make sure you read this first (usually it's enough to follow instructions in the second post).
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#15
bruienne Wrote:Just tinkered around a bit in /var/mobile/Library/Preferences/XBMC/userdata/guisettings.xml and flipped these two on, hoping it'd work, and it did:

In the <audiooutput> section, change "false" to "true" on the following entries:

<ac3passthrough>false</ac3passthrough>
<dtspassthrough>false</dtspassthrough>

I am now getting AC3 passed through from the SPDIF out to my 7.1 receiver. Overall video playback is also a lot smoother now that it's not downmixing to 2.0 audio it seems.

HTH.

I would like to try that, but I'm a total noob....
I can ssh into the XBMC directory, but I don't know how to edit the guisettings.xml file.

I know, I have to use an xml editor, and have found several free editors on the net, but how do I actually open, edit and replace the xml file?
Can it be done in terminal, or do I have to copy the xml file to another location, open it in the editor, and copy it back to the atv2 Huh

Sorry for the apparently stupid questions, but this is my first time at this..
Any help is appreciated..
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[AppleTV2] HOW-TO to enable AC3 and DTS output for Apple TV 21