need some help sending audio to receiver via optical (AV710)

[mattress]

so I FINALLY got a nice surround sound system setup.. an onkyo hts580 HTIB -- 5.1. it comes with a nice receiver with what i needed, seperate optical and coaxial inputs (optical for HTPC, coax for HD cable box)

so now i'm trying to configure the computer to send the audio to the receiver via optical/spdif

the sound card is the chaintech av710. I downloaded the latest driver release from via arena for the envy HT-S chipset.

In the control panel applet, I've selected SPDIF out, 5.1 speakers.
Now I have the option of "AC3 and PCM" or "AC3 Only"

If I select "AC3 and PCM" and run the speaker test included in the program, I get sound from the left and right front speakers, and nothing else. on my receiver's display, it says "PCM". On my receiver I have the option to select "Direct" or "Surround". If i select "surround", it turns on "Pro Logic II" (i think this is some kind of stereo upmix?). If I hit "Direct", it displays "direct" and i only get sound from the front l/r speakers.

If I choose "AC3 Only" from the program, I get no sound what-so-ever from the computer, and the display on the receiver still says PCM.

I'm very new to this surround sound stuff, and all these terms and settings are just really confusing me so bear with me.

In the windows control panel, under sound, I have SPDIF volume turned up. speakers are set to 5.1.

What am I doing wrong? Is it something as simple as installs some kind of ac3 codec, or ac3filter or something, and using "AC3 Only mode" from the audio program that came with the drivers?

Thanks for any help or info

[mattress]

I think I have an understanding of how things work now.
My DVD's play in Dolby Digital, which is exactly what I was wishing for.
The only problem I'm having now, is that my receiver is stuck in dolby digital until I exit sagetv.

This is really weird. It has no problem automatically detecting source types, and switching between PCM and DTS, etc automatically. It works normal when I boot the computer, everything plays fine, and it sees it as PCM. I play a dvd, it automatically switches to dolby digital, and I get surround sound.

Now, I hit stop, and go back to the main menu. (there's no video playing or anything). If I try to watch TV or something, I get no audio, because my receiver still thinks it's getting a dolby digital signal.

When I exit out of sage, it clicks back over to PCM, and I can load sage back up and everything functions normally again...

What would cause this? How do I correct it? It's like sage isn't letting go of the audio stream or something..


also, I downloaded a DTS .wav file. How can I pass it to my receiver? I tried using windows media player and sagetv to play it ... and well.. it didn't play correctly (all static)

[dflachbart]

Originally Posted by mattress

I think I have an understanding of how things work now.
My DVD's play in Dolby Digital, which is exactly what I was wishing for.
The only problem I'm having now, is that my receiver is stuck in dolby digital until I exit sagetv.

This is really weird. It has no problem automatically detecting source types, and switching between PCM and DTS, etc automatically. It works normal when I boot the computer, everything plays fine, and it sees it as PCM. I play a dvd, it automatically switches to dolby digital, and I get surround sound.

Now, I hit stop, and go back to the main menu. (there's no video playing or anything). If I try to watch TV or something, I get no audio, because my receiver still thinks it's getting a dolby digital signal.

When I exit out of sage, it clicks back over to PCM, and I can load sage back up and everything functions normally again...

What would cause this? How do I correct it? It's like sage isn't letting go of the audio stream or something..

I have seen this problem reported many times in the forums here ...

Originally Posted by mattress

also, I downloaded a DTS .wav file. How can I pass it to my receiver? I tried using windows media player and sagetv to play it ... and well.. it didn't play correctly (all static)

This is because Kmixer which is built into Windows will resample the DTS signal, and your receiver will only receive garbage ...

I also have a chaintech av710 and am running it in "bit-perfect" mode with ASIO (which bypasses Kmixer) and have never had those issues, my receiver switches back to PCM without problems. I once downloaded a DTS file, and it also plays fine on my receiver. Have a look at the forums over at htpcnews.com, there is a lot about ASIO / bitperfect audio to read. A starting point would be this thread.

Of course I am not sure if this would help with your problem, it might be cause by something else, but it doesnt hurt to try.

Dirk

[mattress]

Originally Posted by flachbar

I also have a chaintech av710 and am running it in "bit-perfect" mode with ASIO (which bypasses Kmixer) and have never had those issues, my receiver switches back to PCM without problems.

thanks so much for your reply! i followed that link about trying to setup ASIO, but I can't seem to get it to work properly.

I'm using the latest version of the Envy HT-S drivers from viaarena.com -- and I downloaded the latest version of ASIO4ALL from their website.

In the guide, it said to disable the input. When I try to do this, it crashes the asio4all control panel, and everytime I try to open it, it crashes again so I can't get back into it. Even uninstalling/reinstalling won't fix it, I have to manually go in and remove the registry entries, and reinstall asio4all.

so i leave the input enabled. i downloaded the winamp plugin from otachan.com (i think), and tried running it through ASIO... and couldn't get it to work. winamp would either crash, or wouldn't play at all...

:sigh:

Am I doing something wrong? Do I have to flash my card to a prodigy? Do I have to use a different driver set? Do I have to configure the drivers a certain way for all of this to work?

Thanks for any help...

[wazkaren]

Originally Posted by mattress

I think I have an understanding of how things work now.
My DVD's play in Dolby Digital, which is exactly what I was wishing for.
The only problem I'm having now, is that my receiver is stuck in dolby digital until I exit sagetv.

Are you using SageMC 16x9 STV by any chance? I had the same problem you describe with SageMC. It was fixed by deleting the SageMC sound files:

http://forums.freytechnologies.com/f...&postcount=806


Just a thought,
Greg

[mattress]

Originally Posted by wazkaren

Are you using SageMC 16x9 STV by any chance? I had the same problem you describe with SageMC. It was fixed by deleting the SageMC sound files:

http://forums.freytechnologies.com/f...&postcount=806


Just a thought,
Greg

zomg marry me.

that fixed it