PC - AV Problems

[pthomson]

Hi all,

Today i setup the below system (see sig) in the hope that i could both play DVD's and also 1080p blueray mkv files from my computer.

I'm currently using a Asus Xonar DX (soundcard) through the SPDIF optical out to send digital sound to my Yamaha amp.

My problem is that although music sounds perfect, when i play a movie, whether it be a Divx/Mkv file (using media player classic) the volumn is very low. The strange thing is that on the Asus Xonar speaker sound test, it plays at normal volumn and all speakers are picked up. When play a HD mkv the amp also changes to Digital and all 6 speakers light up.

In order to switch between my 2.1 computer setup and my amp, i'm using the asus xonar control panel with the below settings:

2.1



5.1




Can anyone please help?

 

[ResidentDeagle]

you have to turn your output volume on main volume up, as by looking at that its only halfway on your pc. just go to the volume control panel.

btw i have the same soundcard good aint it!

another thing that might be daft i have my sample rate set to 192 khz but thats my personal preference.

and naturally dolby digital is quite quiet compared to standard 2 channel audio and DTS i never found out why this is but i know its a common fact.

 

[pthomson]

you have to turn your output volume on main volume up, as by looking at that its only halfway on your pc. just go to the volume control panel.

btw i have the same soundcard good aint it!

another thing that might be daft i have my sample rate set to 192 khz but thats my personal preference.

Hi thanks for the response, even when i turn everything up full and almost half volume on the amp it's still really quiet. What is really strange is that the volume required for music (via the computer) is relatively low. I..e, with the above settings it would be fair too loud (ofcause this depends on the amp vol settings). But something is just not right here.

Any thoughts guys?

 

[ResidentDeagle]

i wonder if theres a setting on the software to just output it untouched to the amp so it can do the decoding try setting it to PCM.

hopefully that might change it not sure though as ive never tryed optical out to my amp from pc before on this soundcard.. worth a try though so i can experience what your going through

 

[pthomson]

Thanks deagle.

PCM has no effect. However, when i selected Digital Output, the movie when into 2 channel pro logic 2 and the volume was restored to the expected level. When i changed back to Speakers (Asus Xonar DX Audio advice) option the sound was almost no existent. The strange thing is, with the said speakers option, i can go into configure, then into setup and the sound test activates all speakers including the sub at the expected level.



This is really frustrating - help!

 

[pthomson]

Well, after much researching i simply checked all my levels. What i hadn't previously checked was the application setting for MPC



Previously it was at about 5% in the above vol controls. How this contradicted the volumn control on the actual app (which was at %100) is any ones guess, but there you go ...

Well, i just played the chopper scene from transformers and it blew me away - now i can anjoy my new sounds

 

[ResidentDeagle]

hahah i said that in my second post i knew it was there!!

any ways have fun mate.

 

[pthomson]

Yep - school boy error. Unfortunitely it's only playing in mono full surround when i select Digital Output as below, and only 2.1 when i select speakers (this setting appears to kick the amp into full digital mode though).



I havn't touched the audio settings in MPC - is it possible that it's somehow only sending mono and the amp is picking it up as 5.1 but only playing through the two front speakers and sub?

Gar can anyone help

 

[ResidentDeagle]

im just wandering have you downloaded the latest software for the asus card for vista as i know it has issues with vista :S

 

[pthomson]

Right to cut along story short, a member of the AV OCUK forums was able to help me. I'm not quite sure what was going on, but i have now moved to KM Player with CoreAVC and Haali Media Splitter.

I can now easily stream HD from my PC to my TV & AMP and in some cases my Amp even displays Dolby EX.

Chris1712 guide can be found here.

Ok everyone, thought i'd whack together a brief guide on getting HD playback working on the Advent 4211 (MSI Wind), well 720p at least (not tried 1080p yet).

So here we go.......

First off, if you havent already get rid of the crappy competitor install (I work for them so I'm allowed to dis their preinstalled stuff!). I run XP+SP3 installed off a USB stick.

Ok so here we go, get your drivers etc. up to date and then get these files/apps.

KMPlayer
CoreAVC Pro
Haali Media Splitter

1) Install KMPlayer

2) Install CoreAVC

3) Install Haali Media Splitter - Untick all options during install:

4) Once these are installed open up KMPlayer

5) Right click in the player window and goto:

6) Options ---> Preferences General --->Playback---Work Priority

7) Tick Enable SuperSpeed and Goto:

8) Filter Control--->Decoder Usage--->Internal Video Decoder

9) Untick H.264 and AVC1:

10) Filter Control--->Decoder Usage--->External Video Decoder

11) Set H.264 Video and AVC1 Video to System Default

12) Click the "c" next to H.264 and this should display the CoreAVC settings

13) Tick Preferred decoder and click Close

14) Still within the KMPlayer settings Goto:

15) Filter Control---->Splitter

16) Select System default for Matroska and Goto:

17) Filter control---->Source Filter--->The Rest tab

18) Tick Matroska

19) Click Close which will save the settings

Hope this helps someone else

 

[stug45]

this might make sense to you guys:

creative xfi connected with adaptor and mono phono lead into coax input of av.

i had to play with settings to enable it:

when trying to adjust spdif settings for my creative sound card (turned on digital i/o on) i had to make sure that each program was playing out of the digital spdif in order to hear the sound and get digital (PCM) displayed on the av.

the programs i had open had selected speakers so had to close them and make sure that the digital spdif option was default and then reopen the program to get sound to appear.

all working at 96khz

before i had all the settings corrected when a windows sound played it had to play out of the speakers while the music was going out the spdif. this muted the sound of the music while it played a bad quality windows sound.

but vista/windows sounds dont seem to play correctly. they seem to miss notes out and also sound odd....it doesnt bother me because it doesn't mute to play, they just sound odd. are they not able to travel correctly?

 

[pthomson]

creative xfi sound cards have known problems with vista. I assume your running with the latest drivers?

 

[stug45]

as far as im aware they only released one version? the same one from their site

 

[pthomson]

I can't really say because i don't own one but it may be worth checking it out.