Mailing List Archive

5.1 wrong speaker problem
Just upgraded to 0.24-fixes from 0.23. I have some recordings that are
in 5.1. If I recall, I think for me using 0.23, I only ever got stereo,
even on 5.1 material, so this 5.1 stuff is a new feature for me.

My frontend sound output is set to ALSA:hdmi:CARD=NVidia,DEV=0 (its an ION)

When I playback a 5.1 program, the center channel seems to be going to
the REAR left. How can this happen?
Shouldn't the sound be sent unmolested directly to my audio receiver and
it would decodes it there?
These recordings were make using a HD-PVR ( w/ SPDIF )

I do have the boxes checked that says my system suppports dolby and dts.
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Re: 5.1 wrong speaker problem [ In reply to ]
On Jan 26, 2011, at 1:37 AM, Ken Bass wrote:

> Just upgraded to 0.24-fixes from 0.23. I have some recordings that are in 5.1. If I recall, I think for me using 0.23, I only ever got stereo, even on 5.1 material, so this 5.1 stuff is a new feature for me.
>
> My frontend sound output is set to ALSA:hdmi:CARD=NVidia,DEV=0 (its an ION)
>
> When I playback a 5.1 program, the center channel seems to be going to the REAR left. How can this happen?
> Shouldn't the sound be sent unmolested directly to my audio receiver and it would decodes it there?
> These recordings were make using a HD-PVR ( w/ SPDIF )
>
> I do have the boxes checked that says my system suppports dolby and dts.

Interesting. I just got a new audio toy (Yamaha NeoHD) for my secondary
frontend, which is also an ION, and had been using plain old stereo out
until a few days ago... Now I'm doing audio via hdmi to the NeoHD, and
something I noticed when running alsa-utils speaker-test on the ION was
that two of the channels seemed to be swapped (but in my case, I swear
it was subwoofer and one of the surrounds). Haven't poked at it any more
since then...

--
Jarod Wilson
jarod@wilsonet.com



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Re: 5.1 wrong speaker problem - SOLVED [ In reply to ]
On 1/26/2011 1:37 AM, Ken Bass wrote:
> Just upgraded to 0.24-fixes from 0.23. I have some recordings that are
> in 5.1. If I recall, I think for me using 0.23, I only ever got
> stereo, even on 5.1 material, so this 5.1 stuff is a new feature for me.
>
> My frontend sound output is set to ALSA:hdmi:CARD=NVidia,DEV=0 (its an
> ION)
>
> When I playback a 5.1 program, the center channel seems to be going to
> the REAR left. How can this happen?
> Shouldn't the sound be sent unmolested directly to my audio receiver
> and it would decodes it there?
> These recordings were make using a HD-PVR ( w/ SPDIF )

This is an ALSA bug. The NVIDIA MCP79/7A HDMI hardware has incorrect
channel mapping.

The Center channel and LFE was swapped with the Rear Left and Rear Right.

The workaround is to add the following to the asound.conf

pcm.!hdmi {
type route
slave.pcm
"cards.HDA-Intel.pcm.hdmi.0:CARD=NVidia,AES0=0x4,AES1=0x82,AES2=0x0,AES3=0x2"
ttable.0.0 1
ttable.1.1 1
ttable.2.4 1
ttable.3.5 1
ttable.4.2 1
ttable.5.3 1
ttable.6.6 1
ttable.7.7 1
}

See: http://www.spinics.net/lists/alsa-devel/msg39694.html

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Re: 5.1 wrong speaker problem [ In reply to ]
Hi

On 26 January 2011 07:37, Ken Bass <kbass@kenbass.com> wrote:

> When I playback a 5.1 program, the center channel seems to be going to the
> REAR left. How can this happen?

The ION / 9400M nvidia chipset has an incorrect channel ordering. It
is set to SMPTE ordering only and not alsa ordering (or more exactly,
it can not be reconfigured).

There are no easy way around it but remap the channels using a custom
alsa configuration.

This topic has been discussed earlier.

the other way around it is to not use multi-channels PCM but force
using AC3 or DTS only.
In the advanced audio config, check the StereoPCM box.

Problem solved.

> Shouldn't the sound be sent unmolested directly to my audio receiver and it
> would decodes it there?
Not if using multichannels LPCM. Only when using AC3, DTS or other
encoding technique

> These recordings were make using a HD-PVR ( w/ SPDIF )
>
> I do have the boxes checked that says my system suppports dolby and dts.

You must have configured mythtv in such a way that audio processing is
required (e.g. resampling, upmixing, downmixing, software volume
etc..). As the audio is decoded and multichannels audio is supported,
it doesn't get re-encoded it and send it as LPCM.

This issue only occurs with ION1 or 9400M based machine.

Jean-Yves
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Re: 5.1 wrong speaker problem - SOLVED [ In reply to ]
On 26 January 2011 15:54, Ken Bass <kbass@kenbass.com> wrote:

> This is an ALSA bug. The NVIDIA MCP79/7A HDMI hardware has incorrect
> channel mapping.
not really an ALSA bug as such.

The ion audio hardware doesn't allow remapping the channels like what
alsa expects.

I explained the other work-around in an earlier post
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Re: 5.1 wrong speaker problem [ In reply to ]
On 1/26/2011 9:59 AM, Jean-Yves Avenard wrote:
>
> the other way around it is to not use multi-channels PCM but force
> using AC3 or DTS only.
> In the advanced audio config, check the StereoPCM box.
>
> Problem solved.
>
>
Can you explain what that checkbox does. I did not check it because it
says to use it only if your amp only supports 2 channels PCM (typically
an old HDMI 1.0 device). Multi-channels audio will be re-encoded to AC3
when required.

So does this mean software is having to re-encode to AC3 when this
advanced option is checked? On a slower zotac atom FE is this going to
be a problem?

At quick glance, it appears to be working with this turned on.

Despite my previous post that adding the 'pcm.!hdmi {' to asound.conf
fixed it, that is not really true.
It fixed it when testing using speaker-test and when manually running
the FE. But after reboot, the change causes no audio in mythtv.

Looking at the logs, I see:

Jan 26 10:16:20 frontend pulseaudio[1766]: module-alsa-card.c: Failed to
find a working profile.
Jan 26 10:16:20 frontend pulseaudio[1766]: module.c: Failed to load
module "module-alsa-card" (argument: "device_id="0"
name="pci-0000_00_08.0" card_name="alsa_card.pci-0000_00_08.0"
tsched=yes ignore_dB=no
card_properties="module-udev-detect.discovered=1""): initialization failed.

Having that statement in there is somehow messing up boot-time init of
the sound card.
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Re: 5.1 wrong speaker problem [ In reply to ]
Hi

On 26 January 2011 16:43, Ken Bass <kbass@kenbass.com> wrote:
> Can you explain what that checkbox does. I did not check it because it says
> to use it only if your amp only supports 2 channels PCM (typically an old
> HDMI 1.0 device). Multi-channels audio will be re-encoded to AC3 when
> required.

It tells myth to not output multichannels PCM.
e.g. all multichannels audio will be re-encoded as AC3 when required
(passthrough still works obviously)

> So does this mean software is having to re-encode to AC3 when this advanced
> option is checked? On a slower zotac atom FE is this going to be a problem?

it will re-encode to AC3 only if it had to decode it in the first place.

> Looking at the logs, I see:
>
> Jan 26 10:16:20 frontend pulseaudio[1766]: module-alsa-card.c: Failed to
> find a working profile.
> Jan 26 10:16:20 frontend pulseaudio[1766]: module.c: Failed to load  module
> "module-alsa-card" (argument: "device_id="0" name="pci-0000_00_08.0"
> card_name="alsa_card.pci-0000_00_08.0" tsched=yes ignore_dB=no
> card_properties="module-udev-detect.discovered=1""): initialization failed.

that's not a mythtv log ; that's pulseaudio

>
> Having that statement in there is somehow messing up boot-time init of the
> sound card.

you just need to change the configuration of pulseaudio ..
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Re: 5.1 wrong speaker problem [ In reply to ]
On 1/26/2011 11:01 AM, Jean-Yves Avenard wrote:
> Hi
>
> On 26 January 2011 16:43, Ken Bass<kbass@kenbass.com> wrote:
>> Can you explain what that checkbox does. I did not check it because it says
>> to use it only if your amp only supports 2 channels PCM (typically an old
>> HDMI 1.0 device). Multi-channels audio will be re-encoded to AC3 when
>> required.
> It tells myth to not output multichannels PCM.
> e.g. all multichannels audio will be re-encoded as AC3 when required
> (passthrough still works obviously)
>
Dumb question, but where is passthrough selected? I see nothing called
passthrough on that screen.

>
>> Having that statement in there is somehow messing up boot-time init of the
>> sound card.
> you just need to change the configuration of pulseaudio ..

That is what I have been messing with for many many hours. Any
suggestions? I kind of thought only alsa was used in mythtv. But adding
that remap stuff to asound does something to pulseaudio which prevents
the device from being created which causes no device for myth to open.

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Re: 5.1 wrong speaker problem [ In reply to ]
On 26 January 2011 17:34, Ken Bass <kbass@kenbass.com> wrote:

> Dumb question, but where is passthrough selected? I see nothing called
> passthrough on that screen.

AC3, DTS .. are all passthrough audio option

> That is what I have been messing with for many many hours. Any suggestions?
> I kind of thought only alsa was used in mythtv. But adding that remap stuff
> to asound does something to pulseaudio which prevents the device from being
> created which causes no device for myth to open.

You only have no device for myth to open, if you haven't properly set
up myth for your system.

You have a scan audio device button, click on it and select the
appropriate audio device. problems with pulseaudio there are
irrelevant

I can only help with myth, if you have pulseaudio issue, check with them.
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Re: 5.1 wrong speaker problem [ In reply to ]
On 1/26/2011 12:06 PM, Jean-Yves Avenard wrote:
>
> You only have no device for myth to open, if you haven't properly set
> up myth for your system.
>
> You have a scan audio device button, click on it and select the
> appropriate audio device. problems with pulseaudio there are
> irrelevant
As I already said, if I add the the lines to asound.conf and reboot.
That causes the pulseaudio error message in the syslog. When that
happens, speaker test still works fine, but the logs show

'ALSA, Error: snd_pcm_open("hdmi:CARD=NVidia"): Invalid argument'

Hitting the scan audio button display 'ALSA:hdmi:CARD=NVidia" is invalid
or not useable

So I would not agree that problems with pulseaudio are irrelevant. The
addition to asound.conf the channel mapping/order under the speaker-test
utility, but breaks sound under mythtv.

> I can only help with myth, if you have pulseaudio issue, check with them.
:(

I'm running stock Fedora 14 using Zotac ION FE for Mythtv. I thought
surely more people have experience with these upgrade bumps here than
elsewhere. Maybe someone else running this configuration will have some
helpful advice.
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Re: 5.1 wrong speaker problem [ In reply to ]
Hi

On 26 January 2011 18:25, Ken Bass <kbass@kenbass.com> wrote:
> As I already said, if I add the the lines to asound.conf and reboot. That
> causes the pulseaudio error message in the syslog. When that happens,
> speaker test still works fine, but the logs show
>
> 'ALSA, Error: snd_pcm_open("hdmi:CARD=NVidia"): Invalid argument'
>
> Hitting the scan audio button display 'ALSA:hdmi:CARD=NVidia" is invalid or
> not useable

I would have thought the error message be rather self-explanatory.

Do not use this device, but one of the other one showing up in the
list after you scanned for audio devices

>
> So I would not agree that problems with pulseaudio are irrelevant. The
> addition to asound.conf the channel mapping/order under the speaker-test
> utility, but breaks sound under mythtv.

no it doesn't.
It cause the hdmi alsa device to not exists anymore ; so you need to
configure another one, which would happen to be the one you've defined
in the .asoundrc

You configured myth to use a specific alsa device. You then modified
the alsa configuration causing that device to either not exist anymore
or not be usable.

You now need to edit the audio properties again, scan for the audio
devices and select a different one. The error you are seeing only
tells you that your old config isn't usable

> I'm running stock Fedora 14 using Zotac ION FE for Mythtv. I thought surely
> more people have experience with these upgrade bumps here than elsewhere.
> Maybe someone else running this configuration will have some helpful advice.

I've already given you a simple way to fix you problem by selecting
StereoPCM and not having to mess up with the alsa configuration.

Why can't you just use that and forget about your problems ? what's
the point in wasting time like this?
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Re: 5.1 wrong speaker problem [ In reply to ]
On 1/26/2011 12:50 PM, Jean-Yves Avenard wrote:
>
> I've already given you a simple way to fix you problem by selecting
> StereoPCM and not having to mess up with the alsa configuration.
>
> Why can't you just use that and forget about your problems ? what's
> the point in wasting time like this?

That is exactly what I ended up doing. However since there were other
threads that mentioned
an asound.conf fix, I wanted to see if I could get that working since
that really seemed to be the 'correct' way to do this (allowing the
device to receive alsa order instead of smpte). But I'm not well versed
or motivated enough in the voodoo of pulse/alsa get it working on Fedora14.

And, btw, thanks for the StereoPCM suggestion.

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Re: 5.1 wrong speaker problem - SOLVED [ In reply to ]
On Wed, Jan 26, 2011 at 9:54 AM, Ken Bass <kbass@kenbass.com> wrote:
> On 1/26/2011 1:37 AM, Ken Bass wrote:
>>
>> Just upgraded to 0.24-fixes from 0.23. I have some recordings that are in
>> 5.1. If I recall, I think for me using 0.23, I only ever got stereo, even on
>> 5.1 material, so this 5.1 stuff is a new feature for me.
>>
>> My frontend sound output is set to ALSA:hdmi:CARD=NVidia,DEV=0 (its an
>> ION)
>>
>> When I playback a 5.1 program, the center channel seems to be going to the
>> REAR left. How can this happen?
>> Shouldn't the sound be sent unmolested directly to my audio receiver and
>> it would decodes it there?
>> These recordings were make using a HD-PVR ( w/ SPDIF )
>
> This is an ALSA bug. The NVIDIA MCP79/7A HDMI hardware has incorrect
> channel mapping.
>
> The Center channel and LFE was swapped with the Rear Left and Rear Right.
>
> The workaround is to add the following to the asound.conf
>
>  pcm.!hdmi {
>     type             route
>     slave.pcm
> "cards.HDA-Intel.pcm.hdmi.0:CARD=NVidia,AES0=0x4,AES1=0x82,AES2=0x0,AES3=0x2"
>     ttable.0.0 1
>     ttable.1.1 1
>     ttable.2.4 1
>     ttable.3.5 1
>     ttable.4.2 1
>     ttable.5.3 1
>     ttable.6.6 1
>     ttable.7.7 1
>  }
>
> See: http://www.spinics.net/lists/alsa-devel/msg39694.html
>
> _______________________________________________
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>

I've tried this on my 7.1 setup and the front R/L sound seems to come
from the middle R/L speakers. I created /etc/asound.conf in my
Mythbuntu 10.10 (Myth 0.24). Is this applicable to a 7.1 setup or is
this only relevant to a 5.1 setup? This is on a Zotac ION / Onkyo amp
if it makes any difference.

Thanks!
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Re: 5.1 wrong speaker problem - SOLVED [ In reply to ]
On 18 February 2011 12:23, Steve Harrington <steve@the-harringtons.org> wrote:

> I've tried this on my 7.1 setup and the front R/L sound seems to come
> from the middle R/L speakers.  I created /etc/asound.conf in my
> Mythbuntu 10.10 (Myth 0.24). Is this applicable to a 7.1 setup or is
> this only relevant to a 5.1 setup?  This is on a Zotac ION / Onkyo amp
> if it makes any difference.
this will work with 7.1
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Re: 5.1 wrong speaker problem - SOLVED [ In reply to ]
<snip>
> this will work with 7.1

Thanks! Any tips on how to troubleshoot? Does my sound device line
in Myth have to be:
ALSA:hdmi:CARD=NVidia,DEV=0 ? When I try this, it doesn't work.

mine says ALSA:plughw:CARD=NVidia,DEV=3
and I've tried ALSA:hw:CARD=NVidia,DEV=3 .

These produce sound but with the wrong channels coming through the
speakers. My asound.conf file is as it is above. Any other hints?
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Re: 5.1 wrong speaker problem - SOLVED [ In reply to ]
On 18 February 2011 15:15, Steve Harrington <steve@the-harringtons.org> wrote:
> <snip>
>> this will work with 7.1
>
> Thanks!  Any tips on how to troubleshoot?  Does my sound device line
> in Myth have to be:
> ALSA:hdmi:CARD=NVidia,DEV=0 ?  When I try this, it doesn't work.

>
> mine says ALSA:plughw:CARD=NVidia,DEV=3
> and I've tried ALSA:hw:CARD=NVidia,DEV=3 .
>
> These produce sound but with the wrong channels coming through the
> speakers.  My asound.conf file is as it is above.  Any other hints?

As I said before, for those device to appear you need to have a very
recent version of ALSA installed, and they will then be showing up in
the list of devices. If they don't show up then they are not there.

No point manually entering them.

If you want to manually set things up differently, you will have
better luck in the ALSA support list because this is an alsa issue,
not a myth one
I have provided before the work around to get things to work , I won't
re-iterate them again
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Re: 5.1 wrong speaker problem - SOLVED [ In reply to ]
<snip>
> No point manually entering them.

Actually, I had to type in ALSA:hdmi in the "Audio output device:"
field in order to get this to work. The steps I used were:

1) Install the latest ALSA from:
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Audio/InstallingLinuxAlsaDriverModules
2) Added the following to ~/.asoundrc:

pcm.!hdmi {
type route
slave.pcm
"cards.HDA-Intel.pcm.hdmi.0:CARD=NVidia,AES0=0x4,AES1=0x82,AES2=0x0,AES3=0x2"
ttable.0.0 1
ttable.1.1 1
ttable.6.4 1
ttable.7.5 1
ttable.4.2 1
ttable.5.3 1
ttable.2.6 1
ttable.3.7 1
}

I think that this is slightly different than the one above. Maybe
because of my amp? I had to tweak it after running "speaker-test
-Dhdmi -c 8" .

3) Set "Audio output device:" to ALSA:hdmi .

I'm not sure that this is the most efficient way, but it worked for
me. The only thing I'm a little bummed about is that DTS-MA HD tracks
have to use the DTS Core, so all of my 7.1 videos fall back to 5.1.
Arg! :)

JYA - thanks for the 24Hz tip on your web site - videos that are 24
fps look much smoother with that fix than otherwise.

Hope this can help someone else.
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Re: 5.1 wrong speaker problem - SOLVED [ In reply to ]
On 19 February 2011 14:01, Steve Harrington <steve@the-harringtons.org> wrote:

> me.  The only thing I'm a little bummed about is that DTS-MA HD tracks
> have to use the DTS Core, so all of my 7.1 videos fall back to 5.1.
> Arg! :)

The ION chip doesn't support HBR ; you won't be able to do TrueHD or
DTS-HD MA with it.
As there are no decoder available for anything other than DTS core;
that's what it must use
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Re: 5.1 wrong speaker problem - SOLVED [ In reply to ]
On Fri, Feb 18, 2011 at 10:08 PM, Jean-Yves Avenard <jyavenard@gmail.com> wrote:
> On 19 February 2011 14:01, Steve Harrington <steve@the-harringtons.org> wrote:
>
>> me.  The only thing I'm a little bummed about is that DTS-MA HD tracks
>> have to use the DTS Core, so all of my 7.1 videos fall back to 5.1.
>> Arg! :)
>
> The ION chip doesn't support HBR ; you won't be able to do TrueHD or
> DTS-HD MA with it.
> As there are no decoder available for anything other than DTS core;
> that's what it must use
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>

Yes, that is true. I noticed some open box ION2s at NewEgg, may be
making a purchase soon.
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