Fine tuning questions on xbmc

[Duffy]

I'v been playing around with my xbmc configuration (on a mythbuntu frontend with mythtv installed) and testing a few items. This has given rise to a number of "little detailed" questions:

1. How do you ensure xbmc opens up in its maximum window and not the half size window I currently get?
2. Is it possible to have mythtv and xbmc load at boot, with mythtv being on top?
3. When I exit out of a slide show or dvd, the window reduces back to its smaller size, although the overall border remains the same - there is just a lot of black around the edges. Anyway of keeping the internal window maxmised?
4. When I do maxmise xbmc, you can still see the top bar from the mythbuntu desktop (even when a dvd is playing) - anyway of hiding this?
5. Tried playing a NTSC region 1 dvd in xbmc - didn't work. Should it?
6. With a PAL DVD loaded, couldn't get sound out when audio was set to digital. Under settings, passthrough output device was set to iec958 - is this correct?
7. I am having inconsistent results with loading and ejecting a dvd from the drive:

   • I can insert a dvd and it normally auto starts. If I eject it, sometimes I cannot close the drive (using either the button on the frontend or the eject buttion in the bottom right hand corner of the home window. Other times I can.
   • There are other times when I cannot open the dvd drive.
   • Any thoughts as to cause or fix?

8. Should you add the D: drive (dvd drive) as a source under video? I noticed that if it is added, then when there is no dvd in the drive, you can still open and close the drive by right clicking on the source - this is the most consistent way I have at the moment for opening and closing the drive.

Duffy

[arkay]

Originally Posted by Duffy

I'v been playing around with my xbmc configuration (on a mythbuntu frontend with mythtv installed) and testing a few items. This has given rise to a number of "little detailed" questions:

1. How do you ensure xbmc opens up in its maximum window and not the half size window I currently get?
2. Is it possible to have mythtv and xbmc load at boot, with mythtv being on top?
3. When I exit out of a slide show or dvd, the window reduces back to its smaller size, although the overall border remains the same - there is just a lot of black around the edges. Anyway of keeping the internal window maxmised?
4. When I do maxmise xbmc, you can still see the top bar from the mythbuntu desktop (even when a dvd is playing) - anyway of hiding this?

Duffy,

All of the above (barring 2), are the same problem. You just need to set the resolution that XBMC runs in by default.

Settings->Appearance->Screen

and change "resolution" to be the xxxx*yyy (fullscreen), the fullscreen resolution of your display.

As for question 2. You can start them both at the same time but you don't want to do that. Trust me When you get a remote it won't work. Unlike on windows where remote commands are sent to the frontmost applications, remote commands are sent to every running or listening application on Linux. So if both myth and xbmc are running all your remote commands will go to both and cause issues.

When you get the remote it will only be one button to swap between both apps. It will all become clear

1. Tried playing a NTSC region 1 dvd in xbmc - didn't work. Should it?

It should. Have you tried the same disk in Myth?

1. With a PAL DVD loaded, couldn't get sound out when audio was set to digital. Under settings, passthrough output device was set to iec958 - is this correct?

Should be correct. Do you get Dolby digital audio out of other files/recording or DVD's?. If you do then that isn't the problem. Perhaps that particular dvd had a DTS soundtrack and DTS output was disabled in the settings?

1. I am having inconsistent results with loading and ejecting a dvd from the drive:

   • I can insert a dvd and it normally auto starts. If I eject it, sometimes I cannot close the drive (using either the button on the frontend or the eject buttion in the bottom right hand corner of the home window. Other times I can.
   • There are other times when I cannot open the dvd drive.
   • Any thoughts as to cause or fix?

2. Should you add the D: drive (dvd drive) as a source under video? I noticed that if it is added, then when there is no dvd in the drive, you can still open and close the drive by right clicking on the source - this is the most consistent way I have at the moment for opening and closing the drive.

Duffy

Not sure with the eject thing. I don't have issues with it. You shouldn't need the D: drive added as a source. As long as it's set to monitor for changes in the drive it should jist work. I'll check on mine at some point and see if I can replicate. Can't do it now though..

Cheers,

Arkay.

[Duffy]

Arkay

1. Tried playing a NTSC region 1 dvd in xbmc - didn't work. Should it?

It should. Have you tried the same disk in Myth?

Quote:

I can't get any dvd to play in myth - there must be something wrong with how my dvd drive is mounted. If so, this could be causing all of my problems. How do I remount the drive?

1. With a PAL DVD loaded, couldn't get sound out when audio was set to digital. Under settings, passthrough output device was set to iec958 - is this correct?

Should be correct. Do you get Dolby digital audio out of other files/recording or DVD's?. If you do then that isn't the problem. Perhaps that particular dvd had a DTS soundtrack and DTS output was disabled in the settings?

DTS was enabled. I have tried a number of DVDs that do not have DTS - receiver indicates that only analog is being outputted. Also tried playing a dvd from the hard drive - still no sound.

Checked under the Xfce Settings Manager > Sound - both iec958.0 and iec958.1 were ticked. In fact, every single item was ticked. Should some be disabled? Further, the device selected was "default". The other option was "#0: HDA intel"

Duffy

[arkay]

Duffy,

Sounds like you're not getting any digital audio. There is a lot of front end setup that I've never gone through with you as it seemed like it was working for you but by the sounds of it it's still a long way from optimal.

Just check you're audio on the command line:

alsamixer

Make sure nothing is muted and the volumes are set right then:

sudo alsactl store

to save the values.

Also go into Mythbuntu control center and make sure you have installed libdvddecss. You need it in order to be able to play encrypted DVD's in Myth.

I'll get you some more info tonight hopefully. It takes a while to get the audio working properly for everything. It needs to be set up in a number of places.

Myth should auto mount and dvd you put in, I've never had to manually mount a disk.

I think all these issues are just configuration problems as we haven't yet worked through fronend config.

Cheers,

Arkay.

[Duffy]

Arkay

alsamixer showed everything to be on and not muted.

Installed libdvddecss - NTSC region 1 DVDs now playing.

There was also w32codecs that were not installed - should I install these?

Still no digital sound - hunting around the various settings didn't sow up anything - must be something I'm missing.

Duffy

[arkay]

Cool. One more problem sorted

Yes. Install the w32codecs as well.

Unfortunately the Mrs is watching Criminal Minds on XBMC as I type this so I can't go through the settings

Digital sound in XBMC just worked for me. But I did have to do a bit to get it working in Myth. As I did Myth first it might well be that whatever I did had it working before I installed XBMC.

When I get the time on the frontend I'll get all the settings for both.

Cheers,

Arkay.

[Duffy]

Arkay

Copied your configuration for audio as per your mythtv setup - still no sound.

Decided to check my BIOS settings. They were

High Definition Audio: Enabled
Front Panel Type: HD Audio [other option was AC97]

I tried AC97 as well but it made no difference.

Also removed the audio jack plug from the frontend so that only the coaxial cable was connected - not sure if this would make a difference.

Duffy

[arkay]

Duffy,

Might be a good idea to read and work through this thread.

Only go as far as the "Configuration Files" part. Stop there and DON"T go messing with asound.conf files. You shouldn't need them.

I'm particularly curious as to what aplay -L gives for output.

Cheers,

Arkay.

[Duffy]

Arkay

Appears I don't have iec958/spdif recognised by the system. Output from aplay -L:

dad@myth-frontend:~$ aplay -L
default:CARD=Intel
    HDA Intel, ALC883 Analog
    Default Audio Device
front:CARD=Intel,DEV=0
    HDA Intel, ALC883 Analog
    Front speakers
surround40:CARD=Intel,DEV=0
    HDA Intel, ALC883 Analog
    4.0 Surround output to Front and Rear speakers
surround41:CARD=Intel,DEV=0
    HDA Intel, ALC883 Analog
    4.1 Surround output to Front, Rear and Subwoofer speakers
surround50:CARD=Intel,DEV=0
    HDA Intel, ALC883 Analog
    5.0 Surround output to Front, Center and Rear speakers
surround51:CARD=Intel,DEV=0
    HDA Intel, ALC883 Analog
    5.1 Surround output to Front, Center, Rear and Subwoofer speakers
surround71:CARD=Intel,DEV=0
    HDA Intel, ALC883 Analog
    7.1 Surround output to Front, Center, Side, Rear and Woofer speakers
null
    Discard all samples (playback) or generate zero samples (capture)
dad@myth-frontend:~$

However, I don't know how to get the system to recognise iec958 - it is unmuted in alsamixer, but I suspect this is after iec958 is recognised.

Duffy

[arkay]

Duffy,

Researching now. Can you post up the output of:

aplay -l
asoundconf list

That's a lowercase l.

From what I've seen on the net it looks like these new fandangled HDMI boards are a pain. Will see what I can find though.

Worst worst case scenario is putting in something like a Soundblaster Audigy.

Do you have any spare sound cards lying around?

We'll see what we can figure out first.

Cheers,

Arkay.

P.S. Here's a post that may be of interest.

[Duffy]

Arkay

Can you post up the output of:

aplay -l
asoundconf list

As requested:

dad@myth-frontend:~$ aplay -l
**** List of PLAYBACK Hardware Devices ****
card 0: Intel [HDA Intel], device 0: ALC883 Analog [ALC883 Analog]
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 0: Intel [HDA Intel], device 1: ALC883 Digital [ALC883 Digital]
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 0: Intel [HDA Intel], device 3: ATI HDMI [ATI HDMI]
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
dad@myth-frontend:~$ asoundconf list
Names of available sound cards:
Intel
dad@myth-frontend:~$

Do you have any spare sound cards lying around?

No.

I have been checking my mobo manual. The mobo has coaxial out as the only external connector. However, I can purchase a digital audio connector (4-1 pin SPDIF_OUT) to install that will provide optical digital - this connects to the mobo via a cable. Or am I better off with a separate audio card?

Another thought - I'm connected to the projector using HDMI. HDMI also provides audio - could it be that audio is being sent via this connection (which can't be used by my projector) and, as such, is by-passing the coaxial connector? In other words, the mobo can send digital audio to only one connector and has defaulted to HDMI and not the coaxial connector.

Hope this makes sense.

Duffy

[arkay]

Duffy,

Yep, makes sense, and is exactly what I'm thinking might be happening although according to the link I posted above asoundconf should show 2 soundcards when hdmi is available, yours is only showing one.

I'm fairly certain this can be fixed. I just have to work out how. There's a guy on the XBMC forums that uses the exact motherboard you have and he has posted some info relating to digital SPDIF on his kit so I assume he has it working. Might have to ask him what he did.

The good news is that it came up with this:

card 0: Intel [HDA Intel], device 1: ALC883 Digital [ALC883 Digital]
Subdevices: 1/1
Subdevice #0: subdevice #0

So it does know there's a digital card there.

If you have an avi file with ac3 sound you could try this from the command line and see what you get:

mplayer <media clip> -ao alsa:device=hw=0,1 -ac hwac3

or put a dvd in and mount in to /mnt and try playing it:

<insert disc>
sudo su -
mount /dev/sr0 /mnt
mplayer dvd://1 -dvd-device /mnt -ao alsa:device=hw=0,1 -ac hwac3

I'll keep searching for some clues.

It shouldn't matter that the connection is coaxial and not optical.

You only have sound hooked up via coax at the moment or have you got analog connected as well?
i.e. You are getting sound from it but is that going over coax and you're just not getting AC3 or do you have the other analog audio hooked up as well?


Cheers,

Arkay.