SageTV Client SPDIF grief

[GTwannabe]

My HTPC is connected to my Onkyo receiver via SPDIF. I'm using AC3Filter to upmix 2-channel audio into 5.1 and to passthrough DD and DTS. This works perfectly with recorded SD and HD video and DVD's.

However, I have the following issues:

1. Music playback is bypassing AC3Filter and is being output as 2-channel stereo
2. No sound on Google/YouTube videos
3. No sound on certain converted video formats (MPEG4 HDTV, etc)

*update*
4. No sound from OGG Vorbis encoded music over SPDIF
5. No sound from FLAC encoded music over SPDIF

Any suggestions?

[camus]

Why not let your onkyo handle stereo with ProLogic? It should be far better than what you get from AC3Filter.

For music I think this is normal, but if you want it make ACF is set to process PCM. Again though I would use the receiver.
I will will check out the MP4 HDTV, I just did some conversions tonight.

[Shield]

Have you tried setting AC3 Filter to "NO Change"? This'll allow the receiver to decode it instead of wasting software cpu cycles.

[GTwannabe]

Originally Posted by camus

Why not let your onkyo handle stereo with ProLogic? It should be far better than what you get from AC3Filter.

For music I think this is normal, but if you want it make ACF is set to process PCM. Again though I would use the receiver.
I will will check out the MP4 HDTV, I just did some conversions tonight.

I'm using the Neural Surround setting on the receiver for PCM without any trouble. However, unchecking "Do not encode PCM" in AC3Filter only affects 2-channel recorded TV. Music playback and Google/YouTube videos are somehow bypassing AC3Filter and not talking over SPDIF properly.

[rtengvad]

I'm having no problems playing FLAC files through spdif. Does your log file give any clue?

Rasmus

[GTwannabe]

Originally Posted by rtengvad

I'm having no problems playing FLAC files through spdif. Does your log file give any clue?

Rasmus

Not that I can tell... Sage *acts* like it's playing the FLAC file, but there's no sound over SPDIF. Same thing with Google/YouTube. It will play via analog. Does your song time counter also act all screwy with FLAC songs?

[stanger89]

Originally Posted by camus

Why not let your onkyo handle stereo with ProLogic? It should be far better than what you get from AC3Filter.

My thoughts as well.

Regarding the no sound, what's your soundcard? Is it configured for Digital or S/PDIF output instead of analog?

[GTwannabe]

Originally Posted by stanger89

My thoughts as well.

Regarding the no sound, what's your soundcard? Is it configured for Digital or S/PDIF output instead of analog?

Realtek onboard on a DFI RS482 mobo. It's currently set with analog disabled. DD and DTS bypass are configured in the Windows audio control panel, but I'm pretty sure that only affects WMP/MCE.

[Fuzzy]

I think the problems with different formats working differently comes from different codecs prefering different output methods. I use FFDSHOW for all my audio decoding, having it output 6 ch pcm-16. This then gets picked up by AC3Filter and encoded to be sent to the reciever. Seems to work well for me. Just make sure ffdshow is set to a high merit, and all supported codecs are supported. If you want AC3 and DTS to be passed out to the reciever unaffected, do not enable them in ffdshow, and set AC3Filter to bypass them.

[toricred]

I don't see in ffdshow how to get it to output 6 ch pcm-16.

[Fuzzy]

Originally Posted by toricred

I don't see in ffdshow how to get it to output 6 ch pcm-16.

Couple things need to be set up. First, the audio has to be made multichannel. The Mixer module does this. Set it for 3/0/2 plus LFE. Enable Voice Control and Expand Stereo (adjust to your liking). You can also use the LFE Crossover module to pull the lows into the LFE channel. It is more tunable than most reciever's crossovers (letting you remove the lows from the mains, and set any crossover freq you wish).

On the Output module, make sure 16-bit integer is selected, this will output in multichannel PCM, which will be picked up by AC3Filter and encoded. FFDshow does have the ability to output the AC3 directly, but I have had mixed stability using it's encoder, and using the seperate decoder and encoder lets me pass the AC3 and DTS untouched.

I also start the chain off with the Dolby Decoder module, so if a stereo tv show is set for that, it will pull the channels out as desired.

[toricred]

OK, I got this working pretty well, but I still have a minor problem. FFDSHOW is used for everything but MP2 audio and straight AC3Filter for MP2. I end up with great differences in levels between the two. Is there a way to get MP2 audio handled by ffdshow as well?

[Fuzzy]

AC3 Filter is probably set at a higher merit than FFDSHOW, and is set to accept MPEG Audio. Disable MPEG Audio under AC3Filter's System setings, and it should then get decoded by FFDSHOW instead.

[stanger89]

If you uncheck "Normalize Matrix" in ac3filter it should help the level difference.