Audio pass-through and Volume Control (3 Viewers)

JimmyBoy

Portal Pro
April 18, 2008
107
8
Home Country
United Kingdom United Kingdom
I have mediaportal connected up to my surround amp by SP/DIF. Everything works as I would expect, ie. if I play a movie with 5.1, the amp switches to the appropriate mode (say DTS 5.1) and works as expected. A stereo source also works as expected.

The problem is, that when a DTS soundtrack is played, I have NO control over the volume in MediaPortal itself, I have to use the volume control on the amp, which means I often have to be swapping between 2 different remote controls which is a bit of a pain.

I kind of expected it to work like this, and put it down to the "pass-through" simply passing all the digital data to my amp, and completely bypassing mediaportal itself.

I was just wondering if there was any work around to this so that I still have control of the volume in MediaPortal ?, everything else is fine.

Any help appreciated.
 

tourettes

Retired Team Member
  • Premium Supporter
  • January 7, 2005
    17,301
    4,800
    With passthru enabled it is not possible to alter the audio stream anyway (this behavior is same with all applications). Only way you could control the volume (or any other changes on the audio content) is that you would first decode and then re-encode the audio stream (and do the processing in middle).
     

    Paranoid Delusion

    Moderation Manager
  • Premium Supporter
  • June 13, 2005
    13,062
    2,978
    Cheshire
    Home Country
    United Kingdom United Kingdom
    which means I often have to be swapping between 2 different remote controls which is a bit of a pain.

    What remote are you using with MP, my M$ mce remote can learn volume up\down from a number of devices, so can control amp directly.
     

    mpsam

    Portal Pro
    June 16, 2009
    179
    75
    Some AV receivers have a network connection and iphone and android remote apps (eg. Onkyo TX-NR 609 and YAMAHA RX-V867). Would it be very difficult to have MediaPortal send volume changes to the receiver over the network?
     

    zicoz

    MP Donator
  • Premium Supporter
  • September 3, 2006
    896
    63
    Home Country
    Norway Norway
    Or you could get something like the Harmony One remote and set up a "HTPC mode" where your volume buttons controlls your reciever and not the PC.
     

    JimmyBoy

    Portal Pro
    April 18, 2008
    107
    8
    Home Country
    United Kingdom United Kingdom
    I already have a logitech harmony but I dont get on that well with it to be honest. I dont find it the easiest of remotes to navigate with one hand, its quite sluggish with MediaPortal, from pressing a button to it actually happening in mediaportal (Anooying when going up/down a list) and finally the volume up/down always seems hit and miss. It will sometimes turn the volume of the receiver up/down or it will sometimes do the volume inside MediaPortal itself, and I cant seem to find any logic as to why it does that (probablly me misunderstanding something). So as I say, I have the harmony but im not really that keen on it myself.

    I also have a Logitech deNovo mini, which has it upsides/downsides. The two main things I prefer about the deNovo are I prefer the actual feel of it, the buttons seem to be in the right place when its in your hand, and also the main thing I really like about it is that it is VERY responsive unlike the harmony. With the deNovo it is just like using a keyboard physically attached to your PC - I am assuming that this is down to the different types of receivers used by these controls. The harmony uses IR I think, and the deNovo uses Bleuetooth I think.

    The main disadvantages to the deNovo (that I can remember, I dont actually use it that much) is that a) you cant control any other devices (like amp for volume control) and you cant turn on/off devices, and it was just missing a couple buttons that would of made it alot more usable such as "Gudie" or "Info", so I would always find myself using both remotes to use each 1 for its merits, but this soon became annoying and I just ended "putting up" with the Harmony.

    The main advantage to the deNovo is its layout and a full keyboard / mouse control, which can come in really handy for certain situations, although the mouse control can be a little fiddly at times.

    I suppose what im trying to get at with all this blurb is, it would be really nice if there was some kind of hybrid of these two remotes which combined the fast responses of the bluetooth, but also allowed you to use several devices. Something along the following ;

    1) Fast response to user input on the remote (like deNovo / unlike Harmony)
    2) Ergonomic layout where the device feels right in your hand and the buttons feel in the right place and not awkward to get to (like deNovo, unlike Harmony - may be personal taste?)
    3) Full keyboard / mouse control (like deNovo / unlike Harmony)
    4) Allowing to control other devices like amp, tv etc... (like Harmony / unlike deNovo)
    5) Have all the buttons you need to fully control a HTPC (like Harmony / unlike deNovo)
    6) Easily customise remotes buttons (like Harmony / unlike deNovo)

    After all this I have also considered looking into the plugin that will allow you to use your iphone / ipod touch as a remote, as this seems as though it could have a lot of potential and may be the future. However I dont know how adaptive the plugin can be in terms of being able to control (IR Blast?) other devices etc...

    Welll... I didnt intend for this to turn into such a blurb, can you tell im bored?!! haha

    Cheers.
     

    zicoz

    MP Donator
  • Premium Supporter
  • September 3, 2006
    896
    63
    Home Country
    Norway Norway
    It's true that the Harmony isn't as fluid as it should be, it's sort of a close but no sigar in my Harmony+Imon setup.

    I agree that the ultimate HTPC controller isn't out there yet, I'd love to see a mix of the deNovo Mini, Harmony One and that Acer Revo 100 controll pad.

    Basically a 5-7" black surface with 3 modes that you can switch between, the Revo pad has 2 modes keyboard and mouse.

    - Media controller: Basically a HTPC remote, but with Harmony functionality so you can add shortcuts, and have it work with recievers etc
    - Keyboard: A full qwerty-keyboard
    - Mouse: turns it into a trackpad.

    Some AV receivers have a network connection and iphone and android remote apps (eg. Onkyo TX-NR 609 and YAMAHA RX-V867). Would it be very difficult to have MediaPortal send volume changes to the receiver over the network?

    That could be a really slick thing to implement, and after watching this video it should be possible aswell:

    Lan AV Control for Iphone - YouTube
     

    stalkersvr

    Portal Member
    April 12, 2009
    49
    16
    The main thing, that currently don't implement in hardware (except some dyi devices and toshiba notebooks) - HDMI CEC controller within PC. With it you can control everything with one remote, and no matter, which device was controlled that remote originally. As example - you can press play on remote from receiver and you HTPC start playing (or DVD or BD), and if you press volume key on remote from tv or pc - the receiver volume was changed.
     

    gpnash

    Portal Pro
    March 2, 2015
    70
    16
    65
    Linden, Michigan
    Home Country
    United States of America United States of America
    Can you map volume up and volume down to HDMI cec volume up and hdmi cec volume down?
    I have and use the MCE remote because it's easier and supports more of the MP functions than the tv or denon remote does; all except for volume
    The volume on the MCE remote control only controls the PC volume; I need to pass volume presses thru cec to my denon receiver.
     

    joecrow

    Test Group
  • Team MediaPortal
  • August 9, 2012
    2,529
    1,881
    Home Country
    Germany Germany
    Can you map volume up and volume down to HDMI cec volume up and hdmi cec volume down?
    Yes if you have a CEC adapter installed and use the "CEC Remote plugin, (I assume you do since you mentioned using the TV and Denon remotes) then you can check the box in the plugins setting as shown in the sceenshot. The CEC Remote plugin works well the other way round, i.e. using an MCE remote to control the receivers volume.
    cec.jpg
     

    Users who are viewing this thread

    Top Bottom