My HDMI audio just stopped working

[oilwellsjb]

SageTV HDMI audio no longer works. All other software on this PC produces good audio thru the HDMI connection. I can change the Sound Playback device (Control Panel - Sounds & Audio - Audio - Default Device) from HDMI audio back to the line-out on-board audio device and the SageTV audio comes thru fine. Nothing has been changed to either SageTV or the PC audio settings (nothing intentionally, that is). HDMI audio always worked just fine with SageTV - I just plugged and played.
I've looked thru the SageTV options but can't find anything that would control HDMI audio.
Equipment is Gigabyte GA-MA69GM-S2H, AMD-X2-5500, 4gb memory.
TV card is Hauppage HVR-2250.
HDMI TV is Zenith Z50PX2D plasma.
Any suggestions would be appreciated.

[emisp]

I just replied to a similar issue, but only now realized that was in the Mac Forum. I am running Windows Vista Ultimate. Looks like this problem is common to Windows and Macs.

I just ran into this problem. My standalone system has been working fine for many months, pretty much since last September. I might have reinstalled in March, but thinking about it further I don't think I did, probably just removed the sources and rescanned to redo the digital channel lineup. I have Microsoft updates disabled and have changed no software on this system in a long time.

I tried to watch something today, got a blip/pop, then no sound through HDMI. The same files and new recordings all play fine through WMP. Reboot and change of video and audio renderers/codecs does nothing. Looking through the thread for the Macs, I am afraid that reinstalling SageTV might not fix it.

Two things could have triggered this strange behavior:
1) I tried to record an HD program earlier this evening on a channel that disappeared, looks like Comcast remapped the channel again.
2) More likely, the first program I tried to play tonight was an old HD recording from last September, from the one or two weeks when I was getting flaky behavior/bad recordings with time out of sync. I must have checked the recording a long time ago ago, since I deleted an older analog recording, but it still might have been messed up.

This seems to have hit at least four of us now: cnr1089 and keboyle in the Mac "No Audio" thread, and oilwellsjb and I on Windows machines. Clearly there is a real problem here.

SageTv 6.4.8.184, Java 1.6.0_07, Windows Vista Ultimate 32-bit, Gigabyte GA-P35-DS3P, Intel E6850 (3.0GHz), 2G RAM.

[emisp]

I upgraded my video and audio drivers, and finally found success when I added the Realtek ATI HDMI driver. I guess I did not have that installed previously, only the base Realtek HD Audio driver.

Once I added the Realtek ATI HDMI driver on top, I found one combination that works: Realtek HDMI Output (ATI HDMI) (or any of its DirectSound variants) as the Audio Renderer, and Microsoft MPEG-1/DD Audio Decoder as the MPEG2 Audio Decoder Filter. No other combination produces sound. I don't think I tried the Microsoft MPEG-1/DD Audio Decoder before, but when I try it with DirectSound Realtek Digital Output (Realtek HD Audio), I don't get any sound, which is a strong hint that it probably would not have worked without the Realtek ATI HDMI driver.

Clearly something is still not right with the system, since the other combinations did produce sound a few days ago, but at least I can watch successfully now.

The upgrade from ATI Catalyst 7.10 to 8.4 does not seem to have helped the total flakiness of WMP on my system (tends to slow to a crawl or crash about once a minute), but now that Sage works to some extent I don't need WMP as a backup. I should try the ATI related registry tweaks and upgrading WMP itself, but I am in no hurry now.