MediaPortal Audio renderer - better video playback quality (4 Viewers)

[miroslav22]

Hi all,

Just wondering if someone could give me some advice?

I've just started using MPAR and it's working really well. The picture looks sharper with panning shots on 24p material.

I use an ATI 5870 and it doesn't seem to support many audio output formats in WASAPI mode. At the moment I don't have an audio receiver so the card is connected straight to the TV. The WASAPI test tool reports that basically I can pretty much only get 44.1/48khz 16bit stereo. Is this a limitation of the card/drivers, or am I being limited to the audio output formats that the TV can receive?

I am going to buy a receiver soon, so if this is a limitation of the video card/drivers then what is my best option? Do nvidia cards support the full range of formats using WASAPI (ie 96/192khz, 24bit, 7.1 channels etc)? Should I buy a cheap nvidia 4xx card just for HDMI audio output?

Many thanks for any help,

Jon

 

[Owlsroost]

It's a limitation of the audio formats the TV can support - the video card drivers read the EDID data from the connected device (the 'sink' in HDMI speak) and only offer audio formats it can handle. If you are interested try running EnTech Taiwan | Utilities | Monitor Asset Manager - it displays the EDID info in an easy-to-read form.

Tony

 

[tourettes]

I use an ATI 5870 and it doesn't seem to support many audio output formats in WASAPI mode. At the moment I don't have an audio receiver so the card is connected straight to the TV. The WASAPI test tool reports that basically I can pretty much only get 44.1/48khz 16bit stereo. Is this a limitation of the card/drivers, or am I being limited to the audio output formats that the TV can receive?

I am going to buy a receiver soon, so if this is a limitation of the video card/drivers then what is my best option? Do nvidia cards support the full range of formats using WASAPI (ie 96/192khz, 24bit, 7.1 channels etc)? Should I buy a cheap nvidia 4xx card just for HDMI audio output?

As a workaround you can use ffdshow audio decoder and downmix to stereo. At some day the MP Audio Renderer will be able to do downmixing on own, but currently you need to use 3rd party solution.

 

[miroslav22]

Brill thanks

Does the ATI 24-bit limitation mentioned in the first post still apply with the latest drivers?

 

[gibman]

before wathcing a movie I often do some skip steps into the movie. eg +5min etc. just to verify the quality etc.

this often ends up stopping playback and returning back to the moving picture context.

this ONLY happens when using the mp audio renderer.

anyone else seen this ?

it happens 20% of the time when I use skip steps.

/gibman

 

[tourettes]

before wathcing a movie I often do some skip steps into the movie. eg +5min etc. just to verify the quality etc.

this often ends up stopping playback and returning back to the moving picture context.

this ONLY happens when using the mp audio renderer.

anyone else seen this ?

it happens 20% of the time when I use skip steps.

Hasn't happened during the last 6 to 8 months when I have used the audio renderer on HTPC in daily use. No clue what could cause it. Does using skip steps during the movie itself cause same thing to happen? Also doe sthe audio renderer or MP log show anything interesting?

 

[tourettes]

Brill thanks

Does the ATI 24-bit limitation mentioned in the first post still apply with the latest drivers?

Hard to say, haven't owned an ATI HW after 3450 fiasco If it is still not supported just use downsampling to 16 bit in ffdshow until we have a resampler in the audio renderer (and that can "pad" the 24 bit to 32 bit without losing quality).

 

[Sinbe]

Try disabling WASAPIUseEventMode setting in registry. If that wont help I guess there is not much that could be tried.

Tried it already, but it didn't work. I guess it's Creative at fault. Again.

Is there any SPDIF related modes / settings in the Creative's drivers? It might require such to be turned on so that AC3 can be used.

None that I can find. I gave up and have Girder switch my default soundcard to Realtek with the same key that starts MP.

I got rid of any dropped frames by switching from dual display to just one while running MP. For some reason the sync wasn't working perfectly when two displays were both in use. Thanks to whoever hinted this might be causing dropped frames.

Could it be the speaker configuration?
I vaguely remember some cards did not support the standard 5.1/7.1 speaker arrangement and we had to patch the speaker mask.

Can you elaborate this?

 

[Owlsroost]

I've just added version 21 - see https://forum.team-mediaportal.com/637138-post3.html

Tony

 

[red5goahead]

I've just added version 21 - see https://forum.team-mediaportal.com/637138-post3.html

Tony

Hi SoundTouch quality settings exposed will be possible in the future to test a version without time stretching but using resampling ? I prefer time streching indeed for fps adapting for the pitch but could be interesing to value the quality issue between two methods.