Stereo audio not working via HDMI, multichannel OK

[birdie101]

Hi All,

I have an Intel NUC (the i5 version, DC53427HYE) hooked up to my brand new Pioneer VSX-923 via HDMI.

I can watch movies/tv shows etc with DD5.1 or DTS sound without a problem. I cannot hear the system sounds, nor any 2.0 videos or mp3 files.

Can someone help me figure out what is going wrong?

Thanks,
Luke

[josbeir]

Hi,

About 2 weeks ago i bought the same receiver in combination with a NUC i3 (ivy bridge) and got audio problems too.

This was mostly related to Intel driver issues not setting the correct HDMI audio clock. The pioneer is pretty picky about that.
Intel fixed this issue after i made a report of it.

These patches are now included in the latest OE development branch
( https://github.com/OpenELEC/OpenELEC.tv/...e3e85c54b5 )

Another issue here (in my case) is that the receiver refuses to play anything below 48000hz at a resolution of 1080p@50/6 so a little patch needs to be applied forcing XBMC's audioEngine to resample everything below 48000hz to 48000hz...

ANYWAY :-)
You can find my builds on my google drive folder
=> https://drive.google.com/folderview?id=0...aring#list

Can you test?

As you figured out. Audio is probably working fine on the current stable OE if you lower your refresh rate to at least 25hz... but that kinda sucks :-)

[birdie101]

Hi,

I've tried your build and audio does work now. The receiver shows PCM for all multichannel formats, but they work. Thanks for that.

In between posts, I moved my old HTPC into my lounge and plugged it into the receiver. Running Windows7 and XBMC, it worked perfectly for all audio formats I threw at it. It was never my intention to put windows on the NUC, but I may try it out and see what happens while I wait for the OE builds to catch up to what you've done.

Cheers,
Luke

[josbeir]

Hi,

I've tried your build and audio does work now. The receiver shows PCM for all multichannel formats, but they work. Thanks for that.

In between posts, I moved my old HTPC into my lounge and plugged it into the receiver. Running Windows7 and XBMC, it worked perfectly for all audio formats I threw at it. It was never my intention to put windows on the NUC, but I may try it out and see what happens while I wait for the OE builds to catch up to what you've done.

Cheers,
Luke

Passtrough audio works fine over here, did you enable it in audio settings?

If its not enabled and multi speaker is enabled in audio settings XBMC will convert the streams to PCM

[birdie101]

Hi Josbeir,

Sorry to be a bother, but in the version that you linked to, where is the option to enable passthrough?

Here is a photo of my screen:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/8173....14.48.jpg

There are other settings that aren't available, such as the setting to put the PC to sleep/suspend as the shutdown function, and refresh rate change in video playback settings.

I am not sure if my installation is somewhat corrupted, or if that is how it is intended. Nevertheless, I have working sound at the moment and am very appreciative of your help.

[cludden]

I have exactly the same problem. 44.1khz audio doesn´t work with my combo. Intel celeron NUC and Pioneer receiver. I have tried stable and dev builds. The only one that work "out of the box" is your build. Have you submitted a ticket to openelec devs for this problem or is it related to XBMC?

Can you please make an update build with hdmiclockpatch every now and then?

tnx
/Linus

[theb0rre]

Got the same issue myself.. Hope that the devs are aware of this issue :blink:

ninja edit: back to v. 3.2.0. Works fine there.

[ScAndal]

Hi,

About 2 weeks ago i bought the same receiver in combination with a NUC i3 (ivy bridge) and got audio problems too.

This was mostly related to Intel driver issues not setting the correct HDMI audio clock. The pioneer is pretty picky about that.
Intel fixed this issue after i made a report of it.

These patches are now included in the latest OE development branch
( https://github.com/OpenELEC/OpenELEC.tv/...e3e85c54b5 )

Another issue here (in my case) is that the receiver refuses to play anything below 48000hz at a resolution of 1080p@50/6 so a little patch needs to be applied forcing XBMC's audioEngine to resample everything below 48000hz to 48000hz...

ANYWAY :-)
Here are is the location of my custom build (last compiled yesterday with 'XBMC AE force min 48000hz' and Intel patches applied)
=> https://drive.google.com/folderview?id=0...aring#list

Can you test?

As you figured out. Audio is probably working fine on the current stable OE if you lower your refresh rate to at least 25hz... but that kinda sucks :-)

Have you patched any more recent builds?

[josbeir]

Ah, yes sure...

I'll upload one when i get home this evening...

sorry for the late replies :-)

[josbeir]

The problem is that there's a 'bug' with (many) pioneer receivers and the intel drivers that have problems playing 44.1 audio on non-interlaced resolutions (1080p50/60).
The fix here is to force XBMC to up-samples everything below 48000hz.

My build includes 3 patches:
2 (kernel patches) have already been included in the latest official Openelec dev builds, if you use these you can use the new audio engine settings to set a fixed sample-rate in the GUI. The drawback here is that higher rates will be down-sampled..

My custom build uses a different (better) approach that up-samples everything below 48000hz BUT allows to play everything higher too like 96khz etc!

I was told this patch will never be allowed in XBMC which is understandable because its more of a workaround for the mess of other devices (the pioneer receiver in our case)