HD Audio Not Working on the New HTPC

[itschris]

Well... I finally got around to checking out some movies. I actually don't have a lot of rips with HD audio, but I have couple... both new Star Treks. Well I went to check them out... NO SOUND!!!!!!

I double checked my setting... the HD Audio options in XBMC are selected. I'm sorta of getting sick of this. PLEX just worked and required all of about 10 minutes of working through issues. This has been days. Every time one thing get sorted out, another crops up. And it's never an easy or straightforward fix.

So here we go again... I'm sure I'll spend hours trying to figure it all out. If anyone has gone through this issue, please feel free to help a brother out.

 

[Grador]

If you uncheck the HD audio option XBMC will decode it and send it as uncompressed audio over HDMI, zero quality loss. I'd guess this is what plex was doing anyway.

As for getting it working, what options does it give you for "audio output devices" in settings->system->audio

 

[itschris]

Thanks Grador. I downed 3 largish shots of Tequila and sat and went through every menu all over again. I went back to the Confluence skin which seems easier to navigate for setup issues. I found a setting that I didn't anywhere in AeonNOX. In Confluence, you have your audio settings where you select HDMI up top, the codecs, but in Confluence there's options to scroll through which HDMI to what source. It was set to HDMI, but as I scrolled through I saw that it listed HDMI and my receiver. I selected that one obviously and now everything's fine... All the little lights light up as they should. I went back to AeonNOX and didn't see the two HDMI out options anywhere.

I think I need to take a couple days off from this. I'm just getting pissed off at everything. It's all user error, but it takes forever for me to figure it out since it's all new and have zero experience with XBMC. I think I'm just going to leave it off for a few days and just rip bd's.

Thanks for chiming in so quick. I appreciate it.

 

[Grador]

Glad to help, this stuff gets a little easier as you go along.

 

[itschris]

Glad to help, this stuff gets a little easier as you go along.

I know... at some point you just want things to work you know? I'm sure it'll all be worth it when I'm done. My next effort will be to setup my concert discs. I have Adele, LIVE, Diana Krall, etc. I made a new menu item on the Main Menu bar called concerts and pointed to a new folder I made called concerts. It's not setup correctly though. I did something wrong, but I'm not in the mood to figure it out at this point. The files are there in the library, but don't show all pretty like the movies do. I'm sure the syntax is wrong and scraping and source and all that stuff is wrong. I'll figure that out at some point. Not today anymore.

 

[Grador]

There were one or two feature additions that I got frustrated and dropped for weeks. I don't have any advice on adding the concerts separately though I will say that I'm not entirely sure it's possible to have it set up in the library that way.

 

[itschris]

There were one or two feature additions that I got frustrated and dropped for weeks. I don't have any advice on adding the concerts separately though I will say that I'm not entirely sure it's possible to have it set up in the library that way.

I basically just want to setup a second movie folder called concerts. I'm gonna deal with it at some other point. I'm burnt out.

 

[aberkowitz]

Patience grasshopper!!!

Seriously though, I've experienced the same troubles as you when it came to initial set up. And since I've made some significant changes on the go (e.g. reorganization, software upgrades), there have been times where it seemed like nothing could work right. It has gotten better over time. In the 8 months since I've started I've only had 1 or 2 real issues to deal with over the last 6.

Two recommendations: 1) Find the "official" XMBC forum and use it. I've done this with plex and have found it very helpful because the developers are involved and can help pinpoint the problem. Make sure any and all logging functions are turned on so you can post a log file for review. 2) Step back for a couple days from trying to fix the software and just rip files. You've gotta get it ripped anyway, so may as well use it as a distraction. In my case I had so much media to rip (95% done now!!!) I could spend 3-4 nights after work just setting discs to rip and be happy.

 

[itschris]

That's exactly what I want to do. I litterally came "this" close to reformatting the entire machine and installling PLEX and Windows. It's just everytime I want to do anything, it's an uphill battle to do. The zero HD audio blackout thing yesterday was just about the last straw. I Googled, I read, I review... and got little that could help me. I just happened to barely remember seeing a setting under Confluence referencing more detailed HDMI output settings. I'm sure they're somewhere in the other skins, but I just find it so much easier to do most setup type stuff in Confluence.

I'm going to install the new BD reader in my other machine since the one in there now is old and slow. I noticed some PQ issues on the .264 compression stuff... some mosaic type blocking on dark scenes. Before I lose my mind and chuck the thing into the pool... i'm just going to re-rip what I have already since I was very new at it and just sort of winged it.

 

[panteragstk]

Look on the bright side. You won't forget if you have to set things up again.

 

[itschris]

Look on the bright side. You won't forget if you have to set things up again.

OH BOY! That's a bright alright.

I see the next battle shaping up with my concert DVD's and Blu-Rays. I want to have a seperate main menu item called Concerts. I'm not sure if I should just add the concerts to movie folder or have a seperate folder at the same level called Concerts... which is what I did now. I read that you can make playlists then link the playlist to the new menu item. I have to look into that. I also need to figure out what scraper PLEX uses because it's populated all my concert data perfectly.

I'm worried about the PQ issue is well and now I hear the haunting words about AMD having better PQ. I'm just going to wait and see what happens when I re-rip prior to have yet another meltdown.

 

[AcuDefTechGuy]

Yeah, you need to change 3-4 settings on the system audio setup.

2 of the changes are the HDMI output settings at the bottom of the page. I forgot what it's called. But the default settings did not work for me either.

The 3rd change is to uncheck the PCM audio. I also uncheck the ACC audio.

But I get full DTS-HD MA and Dolby TrueHD on my BD movies and TV shows in XBMC.

 

[itschris]

Yeah... I figured that out last night once I switched back into the Confluence skin. It was just another hour of my life wasted... no big deal.

 

[AcuDefTechGuy]

Yeah... I figured that out last night once I switched back into the Confluence skin. It was just another hour of my life wasted... no big deal.

LOL.

If it isn't broken, right? Why change from the default skin if it isn't broken?

Keep it simple.

I love XBMC (default skin ). Everything works like it should. HD picture and sound. Beautiful art covers. Fast and efficient.

You'll get there.