Dual sound output over HDMI & PC (1 Viewer)

[Spaldo]

I have my HTPC setup to output to my Yamaha receiver (YSP2500) with TV in one room and into another room with a normal TV without receiver.

Unfortunately it looks like when the 5.1 or 7.1 sound is sent to the TV by itself, it is not outputting the center channel so I do not get voice. So far the only way I can get it to output and hear voice on the TV is by setting the output to Stereo. Except when you do this it makes the sound crappy on the receiver.

I was wondering if anyone knew or had luck with having dual outputs with different sound formats. Ie. 5.1 or 7.1 via optical/hdmi and stereo via 3.5mm.

Hope this makes sense, let me know if you need more info...

 

[Spaldo]

After countless changes to configs and changing one setting at a time. It looks like I am getting audio from the Yamaha receiver and normal sound (voice, etc) through the TV speakers at the same time.

Here are the two config combos I used in LAV & MPAR:

Hopefully it stays working and this may help someone else...

 

[Spaldo]

Turns out this wasn't totally the reason it started working. I think it was because I changed windows sound to quad and not 5.1 or 7.1.

When ever I change the Windows sound back to 5.1 it stops the voice from working on the TV sound.

So unfortunately I cannot have 5.1 on my receiver with this setup. I have tried many different ways to get different sound outputs, but, for some reason the Samsung TV internal speaker won't play 5.1 signal from HDMI

Running out of ideas...

 

[mm1352000]

I'm probably not able to help you, but just wanted to ask you to clarify...

Your receiver is connected via HDMI, right?
...and how is your TV connected?

Please specify both video and audio connectivity.

 

[Spaldo]

I should have mentioned that.

Both are currently connected via HDMI.

However, I have also tried using the receiver via HDMI and the TV via VGA with 3.5mm jack (using the green plug. I have also tried setting the green rear plug output to both front speakers and headphones).

Neither make any difference. Thanks for the reply.

 

[mm1352000]

Okay, thanks for the clarification.

If I've understood correctly, the crux of the issue is that you want to get the best possible sound quality from both receiver and TV. However, the fact that the capabilities of the TV (stereo) don't match the capabilities of the receiver (7.1) is making this difficult.

In what context do you actually use the 2 separate audio output options, and how do you change between them?
Is it possible that the ARC (audio renderer changer) plugin could help?

 

[Spaldo]

Okay, thanks for the clarification.

If I've understood correctly, the crux of the issue is that you want to get the best possible sound quality from both receiver and TV. However, the fact that the capabilities of the TV (stereo) don't match the capabilities of the receiver (7.1) is making this difficult.

Spot on. Exactly. I want to get the best out of both if possible. Currently I am not changing it and wasn't sure if there was a way without having to manually change the default everytime.

However, I will have a look at the plugin you have mentioned and see if that is the best bet. Thanks.

Hopefully it works with the current version of mediaportal, etc

 

[Luca Brasi]

If Arc will not solve it I might be able to help with some tweaks in Eventghost and Lav. I let it enable bitstreaming for the use with avr and disable it for the use with the tv.

 

[Spaldo]

So do you manually change it every time or does it work it out? I would love to have a solution were both just work without having to do something when I walk from the lounge to the bedroom.

Any more info on your method, I am interested in what you do

 

[Luca Brasi]

Don't know if you have fiddled with eventghost before. It's a tool for Windows which handles if-this-then-that processes. It works with system events and actions. And with a lot of applications too. e.g. events like connecting a hdmi device can lead to an action in mp, kodi or even lav. Endless possibilities...
So my setup is like this: I have two different profiles on my harmony remote. One is MP+TV and the other is MP+AVR. Whenever I hit the first button eventghost will get notified about it, open up the lav settings and take care of disabling all bitstreaming checkboxes there. It happens in like half a second. Whenever I start the other profile it will go the other way around.
So in your case you will need a trigger of any kind which will start the action. This could be some action within mp or you could even connect a movement sensor which will tell eg that you went to the other room I guess you wouldn't break the butterfly on a wheel so my best guess would be that you assign one of your buttons on your remote to that action and hit it whenever you change rooms. Or eg might even detect to change in the connected devices. Don't know your setup deeply enough to asses that.
Be aware that it might take some work to get it set up and that you might get some time consuming ideas once started with eg...

http://eventghost.net/