Hauppauge HD-PVR & Colossus Support (5 Viewers)

[mm1352000]

@mm,
Yes apparently AAC audio travels across SPDIF. I do not have the RCA cables connected at this time, and the AAC audio is coming through just fine.

Okay - learn something new every day.

Again, Im losing audio in MediaPortal simply because the STB is sending a different audio signal after the channel change. To break it down again...
If I start a DD channel it starts fine, the STB is putting out DD and MediaPortal builds a graph with FFDShow audio filter. If I then change the channel to an AAC channel, the STB is now outputting AAC and the audio doesnt play because the graph is already built with the FFDShow audio filter instead of the Monogram filter. (this is the best example I can come up with.)

That's just the thing - *that should not happen*. To give you an example, most of my channels have HE-AAC audio for which the Monogram codec works fine. I prefer AC3 wherever possible because the AAC sounds low quality to me. To handle that situation, I use the "prefer AC3" setting in MP configuration (TV section). When I start watching an AAC channel, MP detects the available audio streams, finds that there are no AC3 streams, and so puts the Monogram codec in the graph. If I change to a channel with an AC3 stream, MP detects this automatically, remembers that I prefer AC3 over AAC, and puts the AC3Filter in the graph. I can change between AAC and AC3 channels without any audio problems. This is not happening for you, and I don't understand why...

No, I dont want you to change anything in MediaPortal for the small population that have Dish Network. And again, it maybe I have just not found the right settings on my STB to get it to work correctly.

The "small" population that have Dish Network are important to us!
Like I said, if this issue has *anything* to do with TV Server or MP then we should resolve it properly, with code changes if necessary.

When you say change the audio settings, that I should have both the RCA and the SPDIF connections at the same time? That could actually work. I could just set the channels that dont work to Line 1 and the ones that do work to SPDIF. And you dont think MediaPortal will have any issues switching back and forth between the inputs? I will try that this weekend and see if it works.

I'm trying to save you from this:

BTW, I said my issue with using the wrong audio input was gone, well today I had no audio again. It was back on SPDIF. The only thing that changed was I had a Windows Update message so probably the PC was rebooted. So it's possible that a reboot reverts back to SPDIF. I'll need to confirm once I get some free time.

...and this:

Yea, I have had the same thing happen twice. My daughter brought it to my attention again the other night that the audio went out on one of the Colossus tuners. I reset it in graphedit and all was good again.

What I'm saying is that the audio settings should allow you to control which physical input (ie. SPDIF or RCA) TV Server tries to get the audio from. If you're sticking with one audio cable from STB to Colossus (or even if you're sticking with two), rather than setting "auto" in the tuning detail config and then always having to go into GraphEdit/GraphStudio to make sure the right input is selected, why don't you set the inputs properly. Note that changing this should *not* affect the audio codec problem because DD/AC3 and AAC will both be coming in via SPDIF...

mm

 

[WileECoyote]

Ahhhhh! Okay, now I think we're on the same page. I was not aware that MediaPortal would remove/insert filters on the fly.

With that knowledge, then yes, we will need to work toward a solution. Damn, I didn't grab any logs because I was focused on it being a STB issue. Lol oh well, I will get you plenty of logs this weekend.

Thanks again for all your help mm. We appreciate it!!

Wile E.

 

[mm1352000]

Ahhhhh! Okay, now I think we're on the same page. I was not aware that MediaPortal would remove/insert filters on the fly.

With that knowledge, then yes, we will need to work toward a solution. Damn, I didn't grab any logs because I was focused on it being a STB issue. Lol oh well, I will get you plenty of logs this weekend.

Thanks again for all your help mm. We appreciate it!!

Wile E.

Cool bananas
I look forward to the logs...

 

[kilik360]

What I'm saying is that the audio settings should allow you to control which physical input (ie. SPDIF or RCA) TV Server tries to get the audio from. If you're sticking with one audio cable from STB to Colossus (or even if you're sticking with two), rather than setting "auto" in the tuning detail config and then always having to go into GraphEdit/GraphStudio to make sure the right input is selected, why don't you set the inputs properly. Note that changing this should *not* affect the audio codec problem because DD/AC3 and AAC will both be coming in via SPDIF...

mm

If you don't want to use GraphEdit/GraphStudio, I use dshowhelper.dll v55a and the graph is visible in MP (shift+1)
https://forum.team-mediaportal.com/...nter-dshowhelper-community-development-81148/

i'ts a great addon!

I do have the same problem WileE has now : (
The difference is that no sound comes out from my speaker when AAC through SPDIF. But I think it's a false graph because I never have AAC in Arcsoft showbiz.. only DD2.0 or DD 5.1. Now when I click ( TV on in MP ) the graph shows AAC MONOGRAM and nothing comes from my speaker. Weird.... Yesterday everything went fine ( DD2.0 & DD5.1) and today i have this AAC shit coming out from nowhere. I don't know if i'm clear enough, sorry for my english guys, i do my best without translation tools.

 

[WileECoyote]

I do have the same problem WileE has now : (
The difference is that no sound comes out from my speaker when AAC through SPDIF. But I think it's a false graph because I never have AAC in Arcsoft showbiz.. only DD2.0 or DD 5.1. Now when I click ( TV on in MP ) the graph shows AAC MONOGRAM and nothing comes from my speaker. Weird.... Yesterday everything went fine ( DD2.0 & DD5.1) and today i have this AAC shit coming out from nowhere. I don't know if i'm clear enough, sorry for my english guys, i do my best without translation tools.

Sorry your gear is not working now Tell your wife to put down the knife, we're aware and working on it

If you get a chance, please post back your logs so mm can take a look at what is going on. I will post mine as well (probably tonight) and he can hopefully piece together the issue.

Please post logs from both MediaPortal and MediaPortal TV Server (create 2 zip files.)

Thanks Kilik!
Wile E.

 

[jameson_uk]

@mm,
Yes apparently AAC audio travels across SPDIF. I do not have the RCA cables connected at this time, and the AAC audio is coming through just fine.

Okay - learn something new every day.

I am not convinced SPDIF can carry AAC. S/PDIF in theory was only there for stereo PCM. Then DVD people managed to trick it into using the same formats but carrying DD/DTS. WMA Pro is similar but I believe there is still very little hardware than can cope with this. S/PDIF probably has the bandwidth to cope with standard bitrate AAC but I doubt it will be able to cope with higher bitrate stuff or multi-channel.

Either way I am not aware of any hardware accepting AAC over SPDIF.

I am 95% sure that what will be happening is that the AAC is being decoded to PCM and that is being output over SPDIF (so limited to stereo). If you think about it, this is no different to playing mp3 over SPDIF the is decodec to PCM then output over SPDIF.

 

[WileECoyote]

I am 95% sure that what will be happening is that the AAC is being decoded to PCM

Actually, its the other way around. I was going to post this later to mm, but what is happening is my STB sends PCM to the Colossus card via SPDIF, then the Colossus card encodes the sound to AAC.

Sorry for the confusion...

 

[WileECoyote]

Okay mm, here are my logs.

Some Notes:
- I am testing with two channels ESPN (DD) and ESPN U (PCM)
- I have two lines into the Colossus: A.) SPDIF for DD (AC3) and B.) RCA for PCM, which is encoded to AAC by the Colossus.
- I have set ESPN Channel to SPDIF Input 2 (The first SPDIF input is the HDMI input)
- I have set ESPN U Channel to Line in 1
- Monogram is my AAC Codec
- FFDShow is my DD (AC3) Codec


I started ESPN U (PCM) and it played just fine(see attached graph for ESPN U.) I then changed the channel to ESPN (DD) and it did not have audio (see attached graph for ESPN.) NOTE: It does the exact same thing if I start ESPN (DD) first. If I start ESPN (DD) it plays fine and loads the FFDShow filter. If I then change the channel to ESPN U (PCM) it does not unload the FFDShow filter to load the Monogram filter.


For some reason the graph does not automatically change filters. I have attached the logs from both MediaPortal and MediaPortal TV Server.

Let me know if you need more tests run

Thanks mm!
Wile E.

 

[WileECoyote]

Round 2...

I had "Preload Card" checked on both the Colossus cards so I unchecked the option and ran the exact same test.

See the attached logs.

 

[WileECoyote]

sjeffrey,
I changed all my channels to use Line #1 so we will see if the other problem of it switching back to SPDIF goes away. I was working well with my tests, other than MP not autoswitching the filter. It still seemed to be picking the correct input...

We need an option on the SchedulesDirect plugin to be able to select the audio input. Im going to post over there to see if someone wants to take on the task...