MediaPortal Audio renderer - better video playback quality (7 Viewers)

[wonkyd]

As I have the same Onkyo HTX-22HD, I'm very interested in live-TV zapping results. I have some odd behaviours(static noice, slow motion video startup) from time to time and would like to see if you can confirm or not.

Just to add some information this happens only with AC3 encoding enabled (with SPDIF). HDMI + AC3 encoding + Onkyo HTX-22HD has not been tested since chemelli doesn't have HDMI out in the setup.

It would be nice to see how the both SPDIF and HDMI behaves with AC3 enabled. Even when with HDMI there is no reason to use AC3 encoding at all.

Just had a brief look on the HTX-22HD manual content and guess what?

http://www.eu.onkyo.com/dl/1043087/HTX-22HD_En.pdf - page 46

With some HD DVD and Blu-ray discs, a noise may be heard during playback. This may
occur when the audio format changes during playback. It is not a malfunction.

I would say that the Onkyo is broken on the HW / firmware level. This explains the issue chemelli sees on AC3 and live tv.

I received my Onkyo HT-R380 yesterday also, on those pages in my manual that footnote isn't there... I think you may be right tourettes looks like Onkyo are glossing over that issue in the HTX-22HD

 

[psykix]

My Onkyo is the newer version (HTX-22HDX) I get a little click when the sound format changes, but I can live with that.. The pain though, is that if I have a programme on, and I get adverts, the sound changes for the adverts, and then back again when the programme starts again.

Can someone let me know what settings I should have in FFDShow audio? At the moment I have it set to passthrough all formats, PCM first is off, AC3 over S/PDIF is on, and only encode 5.1 is not ticked.

The bigger problem for me, is that when I switch the Onkyo into standby, when I switch on again, I see that Mediaportal has either crashed, or gone into windowed mode. Any idea why?

I leave my HTPC on all the time, so this isn't great for the wife when I am not here!!

The other odd thing is.. I have the Onkyo in direct mode. Normal TV programmes are only sending audio through the front left and right speakers.. If I switch to a movie, then all 5.1 speakers are used..

Never had these kind of complications with an amp before! (And I used to own a Yamaha DSP-A1!!)

Maybe I have just been out of the A/V loop for too long!!!!

 

[Truri]

AW: Re: MediaPortal Audio renderer - better video playback quality

Can someone let me know what settings I should have in FFDShow audio? At the moment I have it set to passthrough all formats, PCM first is off, AC3 over S/PDIF is on, and only encode 5.1 is not ticked.

You have to disable Passthrough completly. The sound has to be Multichannel PCM.

The bigger problem for me, is that when I switch the Onkyo into standby, when I switch on again, I see that Mediaportal has either crashed, or gone into windowed mode. Any idea why?

I have also this problem sometimes. The HDMI Handshake stops the playback when i switch from receiver sound to tv speaker sound (resulting in changing the output channel format) during playback. Its similar to that problem: https://forum.team-mediaportal.com/operating-system-330/windows-7-half-fullscreen-71785/

 

[psykix]

Re: AW: Re: MediaPortal Audio renderer - better video playback quality

Can someone let me know what settings I should have in FFDShow audio? At the moment I have it set to passthrough all formats, PCM first is off, AC3 over S/PDIF is on, and only encode 5.1 is not ticked.

You have to disable Passthrough completly. The sound has to be Multichannel PCM.

The bigger problem for me, is that when I switch the Onkyo into standby, when I switch on again, I see that Mediaportal has either crashed, or gone into windowed mode. Any idea why?

I have also this problem sometimes. The HDMI Handshake stops the playback when i switch from receiver sound to tv speaker sound (resulting in changing the output channel format) during playback. Its similar to that problem: https://forum.team-mediaportal.com/operating-system-330/windows-7-half-fullscreen-71785/

Yep, that is exactly the issue I am experiencing. There doesn't seem to be a definitive solution though, unless I missed something!

With regards to the sound in FFDShow, I had a DOH moment! When I checked in windows, I had it set to stereo. I have changed it to 5.1 and it seems ok. I still have the passthrough settings on in FFDShow though - but it is working??

 

[tourettes]

New binaries available: https://forum.team-mediaportal.com/637138-post3.html

version 16 - based on SVN revision 26614

• Reduced duration of audio resampling that is required for 1:1, 1:2 and 1:3 material - thanks davidf
• Changed collected drift data to be reset only on graph ::run. Previously this was done when ever audio clock was "skipping" backwards / having discontinuity which could cause the reset to be done in incorrect times with some drivers (Xonar at least)
• Small tweaks to the rendering stats

 

[chemelli]

As I have the same Onkyo HTX-22HD, I'm very interested in live-TV zapping results. I have some odd behaviours(static noice, slow motion video startup) from time to time and would like to see if you can confirm or not.

Just to add some information this happens only with AC3 encoding enabled (with SPDIF). HDMI + AC3 encoding + Onkyo HTX-22HD has not been tested since chemelli doesn't have HDMI out in the setup.

It would be nice to see how the both SPDIF and HDMI behaves with AC3 enabled. Even when with HDMI there is no reason to use AC3 encoding at all.

Just had a brief look on the HTX-22HD manual content and guess what?

http://www.eu.onkyo.com/dl/1043087/HTX-22HD_En.pdf - page 46

With some HD DVD and Blu-ray discs, a noise may be heard during playback. This may
occur when the audio format changes during playback. It is not a malfunction.

I would say that the Onkyo is broken on the HW / firmware level. This explains the issue chemelli sees on AC3 and live tv.

But it does happen only with MpAudioRenderer, not with DefaultDirectSound or any other audio program I can download and test

Simone

 

[red5goahead]

New binaries available: https://forum.team-mediaportal.com/637138-post3.html

version 16 - based on SVN revision 26614

• Reduced duration of audio resampling that is required for 1:1, 1:2 and 1:3 material - thanks davidf
• Changed collected drift data to be reset only on graph ::run. Previously this was done when ever audio clock was "skipping" backwards / having discontinuity which could cause the reset to be done in incorrect times with some drivers (Xonar at least)
• Small tweaks to the rendering stats

Sometimes changed with Xonar. I've reactivated the HWBasedRefClock registry entry. All other versions I tried the video hastes the audio now It's the opposite: it's the video to delay progressively. Not too much but costantly.

 

[tourettes]

With version 16 release I would like everyone who downloads it to do two tests and post the results (with at least a minimal system config info - audio card at least...). There still seems to be some issues with the A/V drifting. I haven't been able to reproduce that drifting on 15 / 16 with almost 100 hours of testing (The International, Astronaut Farmer, Serenity... few movies are just played too many times already).

Test 1. 1:1 material

• Play 25 (or 50) fps material on 50 Hz display
• Check A/V sync in the beginning - this should be in sync, if not there is no point in continuing the test
• Leave video to play for 1 hour
• Check A/V sync - this should be still in sync, if not the drifting has been happening (make an aproximation how much the sync is off)
• Take a screenshot of the ! stats and post it here

Test 2. non 1:1 material

• Play 23.976 (or any other non 1:1 / 1:2) fps material on 50 Hz display
• Check A/V sync in the beginning - this should be in sync, if not there is no point in continuing the test
• Leave video to play for 1 hour
• Check A/V sync - this should be still in sync, if not the drifting has been happening (make an aproximation how much the sync is off)
• Take a screenshot of the ! stats and post it here

In any case report the findings. This is the only way we can currently progress since I (or davidf) cannot fix a issue that we dont know about - especially since we cannot reproduce the issue at all.

 

[red5goahead]

[*] Take a screenshot of the ! stats and post it here

so in stats you can get objective informations about A/V drifting?

 

[davidf]

[*] Take a screenshot of the ! stats and post it here

so in stats you can get objective informations about A/V drifting?

In stats it gives the difference between the two hardware clocks - which should be the drift for 1:1 material. For non 1:1 the drift will be increased by the bias amount. The number of adjustments made also has an effect as these slow or speed up the clock too, this number should be low (about 250 per hour or under) or it means that the refresh rate has been calculated incorrectly.