UNOFFICIAL Mediaportal sound HOW-TO 1.0a (4 Viewers)

[igalan]

Yes, I have it on the Start Menu. I selected it as TV Audio Codec inside Media Portal (but not for video).

During installation it asks if you want to use it as defailt codec for a lot of formats, I unchecked all of them (video and audio); I don't want to mess my system with another codec if I'm not sure how it's going to work . Maybe that's the difference, if I don't register it as default for the audio formats, even if I select it on Media Portal, it's not being used for some channels.

 

[BjornPadding]

So that would be it. If you tamper with the settings its what can happen.
Why don't you make a System Restore point if you want to be able to rollback.

Sorry, but this is kind of obvious to me...

 

[igalan]

I didn't use those settings because Media Portal provides the means to choose the audio codecs without having to do system wide changes. Sorry but I fail to see what's so obvious here : ( .

I have pending to do an updated Ghost image, as soon as I have some time, that will be the chance to try again. Did I mention that DScaler Audio Codec works just fine with channel 3/24? I will try with the alternate audio streams on TV3.

 

[BjornPadding]

Directshow filters do not work the same as programs on your computer.
Directshow filters are (if not specified by the calling program) "automagically" selected by Directshow. This selection depends on the settings that are set in the filters you have installed (in the code). For instance; When you install Dscalar audio directshow filter it will register it self to Directshow as capable of doing MP1/MP2/MP3 and AC3. So when directshow get fed AC3 by some program, it will start looking for a filter that can do that. If there are more than 1 that can do that, it will just pick one of them.

Now;
If you switch off ALL the codecs in ffdshow, ffdshow will reports itself to directshow as a noop and will never ever do anything other than taking up harddisk space.

So, what you should do to be able to listen audio on TV3 versio angles is _atleast_
enable mp1/mp2 and set it to mp3lib.

Also, even if you select a codec in mediaportal that is unable to decode a stream at some point, it will "automagically" select another one.

ffdshow shows an ffdshow icon (FF and in blue audio) in the toolbar when loaded.

If its not there, you are not using ffdshow.

 

[igalan]

I see, thanks for the explanation. I thought that it was enough to have the codec selected in Media Portal, it's now obvious that I was mistaken. I'll try with a correct installation of ffdshow and post back.

 

[SpiffBB]

Thanks for the guide!
However it wont work for me. I have done everything with a clean XP MCE install and MP + latest SVN. Then I play the 6 chanal file I get correct sound in WMP 11 BUT in MP I get all sounds BUT only from the front speaker (I have a 2+2 setup). I have tested different settings in ffdshow but allways only front speaker sounds. If I use Purevideo for audio it works. Any idees?

By the way, also tried with AC3filter - any foughts of this utility?

Your "dirty-hack" gets reset everytime I open MP setup but that is normal?

Regards
Oscar

 

[BjornPadding]

Hi Oscar,

I was just playing around with my system too so I directly took a look.
For the ffdshow hack in internal dshow player being reset;
That only gets reset if you run the mediaportal setup, not mediaportal itself, unless you use the settings plugin to set some option in mediaportal.

And for the quadro audio;
Interesting... Of course this is difficult to simulate for me as I have 5.1 here.
Just to make sure you tried the logical;
- you set quadro sound in the ffdshow mixer?
* Output speakers configuration: [2/2 quadro [ v ]]
- you have set sound and audio devices in the windows control panel?
* Speaker settings: [ Advanced... ].
* Speaker setup: Quadraphonic speakers.

If you sure you got those two set right AND the ffdshow audio icon is visible when you play sound, then we can start looking further...
Let me know, I feel that most probably the ffdshow is not being loaded. Really check the icon is in the taskbar.

 

[SpiffBB]

- you set quadro sound in the ffdshow mixer?
* Output speakers configuration: [2/2 quadro [ v ]]
- you have set sound and audio devices in the windows control panel?
* Speaker settings: [ Advanced... ].
* Speaker setup: Quadraphonic speakers.

If you sure you got those two set right AND the ffdshow audio icon is visible when you play sound, then we can start looking further...
Let me know, I feel that most probably the ffdshow is not being loaded. Really check the icon is in the taskbar.

Thanks but no sucess, windows speaker setup for quadro and tried both 2+2 and same as input in ffdshow.
The strange thing about the icon is that it appears for tv, not allways for movies. But I can play movies with AC3-sound! For sound I have a creative X-fi card with analog outputs to my receiver. In the X-fi software there is a digital audio decoder, could this maybe be some problem? I tried to force output to AC3 from ffdshow and hope the X-fi decoder should fix it and its nearly working..... I get surroundsound in movies but havent had any tv to test it on (recorded TV have no sound at all in AC3 mode but that is a bug in tvserver3 as I understand it?). Hovever your test file gives sound only in front speakers AND it have some bad noise also (and as said - in WMP it works perfectly).

One more thing - if I use ffdshow and analog outthere are 3 tv-channels that has no sound! (thay have mpeg1 sound as most of the rest). With Nvidia and ffdshow digital out I get sound on them.

Regards
Oscar

 

[BjornPadding]

AC3 in MP:
Ai, nasty indeed. If hardware AC3 is supported, then that will probably be the problem. Its kind of complicated, but... even if you put in a decoder and the graph notices that the decoder would not be necessary, it doesn't use it and directly connects to DirectSound Out. Can you switch off hardware ac3 decoding in the driver of you card? Maybe not a neat solution, but a good one to look at, atleast for the moment.

Otherwise you are basically to the point that you will really need to get graphedit (graphedt), free downloadable (http://www.digital-digest.com/dvd/downloads/showsoftware_graphedit_141.html). To see what the filter chain looks like in the different situations.


MP1/2 Audio in some channels:
Had the same here. Look at my post to igalan in this thread on 03-09-07, 14:21 (a bit above here). That will probably solve that (use mp3lib for mp1/mp2 if you had not already done that). Also make sure you have all of them enabled there (especially the AC3 one in your case ofcourse).


Force loading:
To be really nasty; open the xml file of mediaportal and change all the "sounddevice" values to: "ffdshow audio decoder". That would be the ultimate force hack to get it accepted in the chain. Again, not very nice, but well, if that is what it does, you are there. Althought it should be necessary...

BTW, saying that, the file you play(channel6_ID, blabla) is being played from the audioplayer section in the xml. Did you check well that it still says "ffdshow audio decoder"? It feels almost impossible that it skips this filter when put as the sounddevice...

Goodluck!

 

[SpiffBB]

Thanks again!
I think it works better now! In ffdshow output section I also enabled all versions of integer and disabled AC3. This seams to work better but its not as in your screenshot a few posts up - is this right for my analog output? I think im not getting any AC3 sound at all in TV but my SVN is from friday and there seams to been a lot of changes since then, tomorow I will trie the latest SVN and get back!

About forced loading in music for the channel6-file - yes it works so lont that the ffdshow icon pops up, the problem is that all sound comes from the front speaker then I do it in MP.

Best regards
Oscar