Audio and Video Problems

[kyfalcon]

I am having some problems with my system and could use some help.

Audio - When I run the AV wizard I set sound to SPDIF and hear sound working for everything (Stereo, Dolby and DTS). But when I the system comes up I only have sound coming from the line out of my audio card and nothing from the SPDIF. How come it works fine in AV_Wizard and not when LinuxMCE is running?

Video - I changed around my xorg.conf so I could get the best resolution for my 42 in LCD through the DVI output on an NVidia 8500. I am using the latest Nvidia drivers. Here is the wierd thing. I have great resolution for the linuxmce orbiter control panel but no video as far as slide show or from DVDs. Now if I go to KDE Desktop and run the UI Diagnostics tool from the launch manager the go back to the orbiter I have excellent video from slideshow and DVD. As soon as I shutdown the diagnostic tool I lose video.

Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks

[colinjones]

run alsamixer from a console and check that your IEC958 is not muted (M key)

[kyfalcon]

Already did that it isn't muted. What does the AV_Wizard do when you click SPDIF? Obviuosly some setting is getting overridden.

Any Idea on the video? Xine setting?

[Crumble]

try your kde desktop and play with the mixer, worked for me.

[kyfalcon]

I've tried messing with the mixer as well.  Here is some output from aplay

linuxmce@dcerouter:~$ aplay -l
**** List of PLAYBACK Hardware Devices ****
card 0: CMI8768 [C-Media CMI8768], device 0: CMI8738-MC8 [C-Media PCI DAC/ADC]
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 0: CMI8768 [C-Media CMI8768], device 1: CMI8738-MC8 [C-Media PCI 2nd DAC]
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 0: CMI8768 [C-Media CMI8768], device 2: CMI8738-MC8 [C-Media PCI IEC958]
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0

and

linuxmce@dcerouter:~$ aplay -l
**** List of PLAYBACK Hardware Devices ****
card 0: CMI8768 [C-Media CMI8768], device 0: CMI8738-MC8 [C-Media PCI DAC/ADC]
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 0: CMI8768 [C-Media CMI8768], device 1: CMI8738-MC8 [C-Media PCI 2nd DAC]
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 0: CMI8768 [C-Media CMI8768], device 2: CMI8738-MC8 [C-Media PCI IEC958]
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
linuxmce@dcerouter:~$ aplay -L
front:CARD=CMI8768,DEV=0
    C-Media CMI8768, C-Media PCI DAC/ADC
    Front speakers
iec958:CARD=CMI8768,DEV=0
    C-Media CMI8768, C-Media PCI DAC/ADC
    IEC958 (S/PDIF) Digital Audio Output
null
    Discard all samples (playback) or generate zero samples (capture)


I assume device 2 is the SPDIF output. So the computer recognizes it.

[Crumble]

did you try it in another computer?  it looks like it's rejecting the output jack for whatever reason.  It's dev=0 and it looks like it recognises the device fine then says forget the output like it doesn't exsist.  Weird.  This is onboard sound right?  Have you tried analog?  This should work with analog and play out on both if it does it might be that you have a bios update thats not working with a digital audio driver correctly.  colinjones what's your bios revision?  it's deffinatley something thats loading after avwizard that's causing the problem, do a dmesg while aplay -l using ctrl+alt and function keys.

Crumble

[kyfalcon]

Analog works fine. But the whole reason I bought the card is for 7.1 audio for watching dvds. How do I do the dmesg thing you are talking about?

Thanks
Kevin

Any ideas on why the video only works when the video io diagnostic tools is running? Something in the Xine settings?

[kyfalcon]

Ok here is an update I shut down the core and media on my hybrid and played my DVD using Kaffine. Everything works just fine. Video looks good, audio is 7.1 using passthrough. So tell me where is the audio and video settings for Xine in Linuxmce. I am gueesing that xine is what both the audio and video is played thru. I'm getting so close to having this thing work. But it has taken me way longer than the nice demonstration video and about $500 more than anticipated, and I haven't even started with tv capture or VoiP yet. 

Thanks
Kevin

[kyfalcon]

Okay I have the sound fixed. In the /etc/pluto/xine.conf the #audio.driver was set to auto when I changed it to alsa everything started working.

Now I have to figure out the difference in the video.

[kyfalcon]

Still can't figure our how to get the slide show ord any video for that matter to work without having the ui diagnostic tool running. I have looked at both xine configs and the only thing I see different is all the GUI stuff. Could that make a difference? I asumed that had more to do with the menu etc which works just fine. Any ideas?

Thanks

[colinjones]

and I am not sure if you are aware but changing xine settings in KDE does not affect XINE player in LMCE that I am aware of.

 Dave

True, to expand/explain this point, kyfalcon, LMCE doesn't use Xine Player for media - Xine Player is a GUI around the xinelib libraries for KDE, LMCE also uses these libraries with a piece of wrapper code called xine_wrapper that provides the LMCE "device" functionality, ie it fuses the DCE messaging interface with the media playing functionality of xinelib. Any settings you change that effect xinelib globally will effect LMCE, but nothing that is specific to Xine Player will have any impact on LMCE...

Col.

[kyfalcon]

Have you tried running UI1 too just make sure that things are working as they should, Also I see you are using the c-media chipset if you were too open k-mixer and on the tool bar choose preference you would see some mixer options for IEC958 I believe there are about 3-4 but only one says Output. I run a 7.1 x-plosion and it works perfect but you have to do this.

 You should not have to play around with the Xine setting in LMCE to get things to work and I am not sure if you are aware but changing xine settings in KDE does not affect XINE player in LMCE that I am aware of.

 How and which Nvidia driver did you install and which card speciafically are you using? What is native res for your lcd?

 Dave

Audio is working after I changed the audio device to alsa instead of auto in the /usr/pluto/xine.config file.

ColinJones, I understand what you are saying but that doesn't explain the fact that the only way I get either a slideshow or video from my DVD is to have Xine running from my KDE then go back to the orbiter. That tells me that the settings automatically set by linuxmce are incorrect.

I am using pny GEForce 8500GT with the latest drivers from nvidia

Thanks

[Crumble]

need more info, what is the video output going to.  What did you set up for video resolution(DVI,VGA etc etc, res and hrtz.)?  What is the native resolution on your tv or monitor (setting that it is made for).  how did you update the nvidia driver?  what nvidia driver did you use? If your playing dvd is it a ide or sata drive? MORE INFO!   

[kyfalcon]

need more info, what is the video output going to.  What did you set up for video resolution(DVI,VGA etc etc, res and hrtz.)?  What is the native resolution on your tv or monitor (setting that it is made for).  how did you update the nvidia driver?  what nvidia driver did you use? If your playing dvd is it a ide or sata drive? MORE INFO!   

Here is the info.

GEForce 8500GT downloaded and installed the nvidia driver from nvidia.
Hooked to my Toshiba Plasma 42 inch via DVI running 1280 x 720 60 hz (exactly what toshiba requests) dvd is ide. Now as I have said as long as I go to KDE desktop and start xine there and then go back to orbiter everything works fine. But as soon as I stop xine that is running in the kde desktop the video in LinuxMCE goes away. Sound works fine now just have this video hang up. I can also play the DVD using kaffiene and everything works great.

Thanks

[colinjones]

Have you tried running UI1 too just make sure that things are working as they should, Also I see you are using the c-media chipset if you were too open k-mixer and on the tool bar choose preference you would see some mixer options for IEC958 I believe there are about 3-4 but only one says Output. I run a 7.1 x-plosion and it works perfect but you have to do this.

 You should not have to play around with the Xine setting in LMCE to get things to work and I am not sure if you are aware but changing xine settings in KDE does not affect XINE player in LMCE that I am aware of.

 How and which Nvidia driver did you install and which card speciafically are you using? What is native res for your lcd?

 Dave

Audio is working after I changed the audio device to alsa instead of auto in the /usr/pluto/xine.config file.

ColinJones, I understand what you are saying but that doesn't explain the fact that the only way I get either a slideshow or video from my DVD is to have Xine running from my KDE then go back to the orbiter. That tells me that the settings automatically set by linuxmce are incorrect.

I am using pny GEForce 8500GT with the latest drivers from nvidia

Thanks

The slide show is run by PhotoScreenSaver, not xine anyway - so you have a strange effect, but I don't think that is indicative that Xine Player is being used within LMCE. The same libraries are being using for player audio/video in LMCE as for playing Xine Player in KDE, but I have no idea why that is happening.

Try checking the dcerouter log and the device logs for xine_wrapper and pss, you should see the LMCE messages/commands being sent back and forth to trigger these functions and what, if any, errors the devices themselves are generating when it isn't working. Compare one with the other..

/var/log/pluto  under there prefixed with the device numbers (except dcerouter.log)... gut says you may have a video/x/gl driver issue somewhere... also, have you reviewed the Xorg log for video issues starting X /var/log/Xorg.0.log