Vista 32bit Audio - 5.1, SPDIF, Partial issue

tommychambers · Apr 21, 2009

New member here. I posted over on The Green Button, but not getting any response... looks like this forum is attended by a more responsive folk!

I am having difficulty getting Vista to play 5.1 audio - but not across the board.

Symptoms:
1. When I go into Control Panel >> Sound >> select Realtek High Def Audio device Properties and then go to the Supported Formats tab, when I click Dolby Digital and Test, I don't hear any sound
2. When I check that Dolby Digital box on the Supported Formats sound tab, and try to play DVDs or multichannel .dvr-ms files, I get no sound
3. When I uncheck the Dolby Digital box and play a DVD, I do get sound from 2 speakers
4. When I play a .mkv file with DTS I do get 5.1 sound
5. When I play a Blu-ray disc through Arcsoft TotalMedia Theatre, I have the "downmix" option selected in the software, and I do get 5.1 DTS sound

My specs:
Vista Premium 32bit
AudioMAX daughter add-on card with S/PDIF-out, capable of Dolby Digital 5.1 surround
Realtek audio drivers, the latest from the OEM website (Abit)
FFDShow installed (in theory, configured to pass through AC3 to SPDIF)
AC3Filter installed (in theory, configured to pass through AC3 to SPDIF)
HK Receiver that can process Dolby Digital and DTS, via optical spdif

Anyone have an idea of why this is happening and how I can get my DVDs and .dvr-ms surround files to play in 5.1 Dolby?

UKMedia · Apr 22, 2009

tommychambers said:
New member here. I posted over on The Green Button, but not getting any response... looks like this forum is attended by a more responsive folk!

I am having difficulty getting Vista to play 5.1 audio - but not across the board.

Symptoms:
1. When I go into Control Panel >> Sound >> select Realtek High Def Audio device Properties and then go to the Supported Formats tab, when I click Dolby Digital and Test, I don't hear any sound
2. When I check that Dolby Digital box on the Supported Formats sound tab, and try to play DVDs or multichannel .dvr-ms files, I get no sound
3. When I uncheck the Dolby Digital box and play a DVD, I do get sound from 2 speakers
4. When I play a .mkv file with DTS I do get 5.1 sound
5. When I play a Blu-ray disc through Arcsoft TotalMedia Theatre, I have the "downmix" option selected in the software, and I do get 5.1 DTS sound

My specs:
Vista Premium 32bit
AudioMAX daughter add-on card with S/PDIF-out, capable of Dolby Digital 5.1 surround
Realtek audio drivers, the latest from the OEM website (Abit)
FFDShow installed (in theory, configured to pass through AC3 to SPDIF)
AC3Filter installed (in theory, configured to pass through AC3 to SPDIF)
HK Receiver that can process Dolby Digital and DTS, via optical spdif

Anyone have an idea of why this is happening and how I can get my DVDs and .dvr-ms surround files to play in 5.1 Dolby?

Hi Welcome to the forum

I'm not familiar with your player(s) but I have setup a number of soundcards, decoders etc to get SPDIF working correctly. The problem normally occurs because somewhere between the codec>player>soundcard something is altering the sound output.

Your ext amp will only select DTS under the following situations:

Your DVD outputs DTS - Sorry but it wouldn't the first time and that is selected;
Your player (WMP, PowerDVD, FFDShow) is configured to output SPDIF and with all sound enhancements turned off;
VMC is configured to output SPDIF - only needed with certain sound cards;
Your soundcard is configured to output SPDIF and with all sound enhancements turned off;
Vista Playback devices (Right Click on the speaker icon in the bottom right corner of the screen) is set SPDIF Interface.

Let me know if the problem remains after you have checked these.

UKMedia

tommychambers · Apr 22, 2009

Thanks. I did a check on all five items, and all are a "yes."

I was fiddling around with this tonight... here is some additional info that should help isolate the problem:
1. When I try to play the multichannel dvr-ms file or DVD with Dolby digital 5.1 in Vista Media Center, no sound at all
2. When I try to play those same files in Windows Media Player, I get 5.1 surround!

So... with VMC being my main interface to playing these files, any ideas about how to play these files through VMC?

UKMedia · Apr 23, 2009

tommychambers said:
Thanks. I did a check on all five items, and all are a "yes."

I was fiddling around with this tonight... here is some additional info that should help isolate the problem:
1. When I try to play the multichannel dvr-ms file or DVD with Dolby digital 5.1 in Vista Media Center, no sound at all
2. When I try to play those same files in Windows Media Player, I get 5.1 surround!

So... with VMC being my main interface to playing these files, any ideas about how to play these files through VMC?

Okay.

Has this ever worked on this installation?

What Decoder have you got installed?

Try this link and make sure that the correct decoder is being used.

The MediaCenter Expert: Vista Media Center Decoder utility

Regards
UKMedia

tommychambers · Apr 23, 2009

UKMedia said:
Has this ever worked on this installation?

Yes, I did have this working for about a year. It's been broken for a month or so. I don't remember installing any programs at time of breakage... not sure if it was a Windows Update that broke it or what.

UKMedia said:
What Decoder have you got installed?

Microsoft MPEG-1/DD Audio Decoder

I also have FFDShow and AC3 Filter installed. Both are (supposedly) configured to do SPDIF passthrough with no audio processing.

UKMedia · Apr 23, 2009

tommychambers said:
UKMedia said:

Has this ever worked on this installation?

Click to expand...

Yes, I did have this working for about a year. It's been broken for a month or so. I don't remember installing any programs at time of breakage... not sure if it was a Windows Update that broke it or what.

UKMedia said:

What Decoder have you got installed?

Click to expand...

Microsoft MPEG-1/DD Audio Decoder

I also have FFDShow and AC3 Filter installed. Both are (supposedly) configured to do SPDIF passthrough with no audio processing.

Did you run the utility?

tommychambers · Apr 23, 2009

Yes, in fact I had found that tool and had ran that utility last night. Microsoft MPEG-1/DD Audio Decoder is what was listed in the Audio drop-down.

UKMedia · Apr 24, 2009

tommychambers said:
Yes, in fact I had found that tool and had ran that utility last night. Microsoft MPEG-1/DD Audio Decoder is what was listed in the Audio drop-down.

This is strange. When you set VMC up, did you select cable input and 5.1 speakers in Media Center Set Up>Set Up Your Speakers?

tommychambers · Apr 24, 2009

UKMedia said:
This is strange. When you set VMC up, did you select cable input and 5.1 speakers in Media Center Set Up>Set Up Your Speakers?

Yes. To be sure, I went through the speaker setup again last night, chose Toslink Cable (S/PDIF) as the input, and selected 5.1. speaker setup. Still no sound on Dolby Digital DVDs and multichannel dvr-ms files.

As I was playing around with this last night (again), I found a confusing scenario. When I open Windows Media Player and play a multichannel dvr-ms file, I get no sound. Then I play a dvr-ms file with 2-channel sound and get 2-channel sound. Then I quickly go back and play the multichannel dvr-ms file, and I get 5.1 sound. I can't reproduce this within VMC.

So still no 5.1 within Vista Media Center. Wow is this frustrating.

UKMedia · Apr 24, 2009

tommychambers said:
UKMedia said:

This is strange. When you set VMC up, did you select cable input and 5.1 speakers in Media Center Set Up>Set Up Your Speakers?

Click to expand...

Yes. To be sure, I went through the speaker setup again last night, chose Toslink Cable (S/PDIF) as the input, and selected 5.1. speaker setup. Still no sound on Dolby Digital DVDs and multichannel dvr-ms files.

As I was playing around with this last night (again), I found a confusing scenario. When I open Windows Media Player and play a multichannel dvr-ms file, I get no sound. Then I play a dvr-ms file with 2-channel sound and get 2-channel sound. Then I quickly go back and play the multichannel dvr-ms file, and I get 5.1 sound. I can't reproduce this within VMC.

So still no 5.1 within Vista Media Center. Wow is this frustrating.

I have had problems in the past with a new sound card driver, which may have been installed by Windows Update. Have you tried rolling back the sound card driver?

UKMedia

tommychambers · Apr 24, 2009

UKMedia said:
I have had problems in the past with a new sound card driver, which may have been installed by Windows Update. Have you tried rolling back the sound card driver?
UKMedia

Yes, a couple of times in the past week I've uninstalled the Realtek HD Sound Drivers, rebooted, then let Vista install the generic drivers... I get the same behavior - no 5.1 sound in Media Center. I reinstall the Realtek Sound Drivers, same thing.

I appreciate the help trying to troubleshoot... I hope we can get to the root issue.

UKMedia · Apr 27, 2009

tommychambers said:
UKMedia said:

I have had problems in the past with a new sound card driver, which may have been installed by Windows Update. Have you tried rolling back the sound card driver?
UKMedia

Click to expand...

Yes, a couple of times in the past week I've uninstalled the Realtek HD Sound Drivers, rebooted, then let Vista install the generic drivers... I get the same behavior - no 5.1 sound in Media Center. I reinstall the Realtek Sound Drivers, same thing.

I appreciate the help trying to troubleshoot... I hope we can get to the root issue.

Hi - Sorry for the delay....

Does your sound card have a VMC plugin? If so, when playing your movie, don't press stop, back up until you get to Tasks and Settings and then you may have an option to select SPDIF rather 5.1.

Hope this helps.

UKMedia

tommychambers · Apr 27, 2009

I checked the sound card specs - it doesn't look like there is any mention of a VMC plug-in, but I'll play a movie and check it out when I get home tonight.

tommychambers · Apr 28, 2009

UKMedia said:
Does your sound card have a VMC plugin? If so, when playing your movie, don't press stop, back up until you get to Tasks and Settings and then you may have an option to select SPDIF rather 5.1.
UKMedia

I went to a bunch of the TV/DVD/Setup menu options, but I don't get any additional audio options when playing a DVD and navigating back to the tasks and settings while the DVD is still playing. I checked this for recorded TV files as well.

Ok, check this out though. While in VMC, when I was playing around with the "Back" button without stopping playback, I discovered something. I found a 2-channel dvr-ms TV recording that played back (Care Bears, my daughter's show), the audio played fine in 2-channel. I click the back button without stopping playback. Then I navigate to a 5.1 channel dvr-ms recording (Lost) and click play and voila, there is not only sound, but 5.1 sound!

Did I fix the issue? No, this is just a wacky workaround. When I stop the Lost recording playback for a few seconds, and try to play it again, no sound. When I go back and play the 2-channel Care Bears recording, I get 2 channel sound. When I stop playback, navigate to the Lost 5.1 recording, and play, no sound. I can recreate the workaround to get 5.1 sound, which is better than nothing, but I'm still hoping to solve the issue outright.

UKMedia, do you have any idea of what is going on? Anyone else?

UKMedia · Apr 28, 2009

tommychambers said:
UKMedia said:

Does your sound card have a VMC plugin? If so, when playing your movie, don't press stop, back up until you get to Tasks and Settings and then you may have an option to select SPDIF rather 5.1.
UKMedia

Click to expand...

I went to a bunch of the TV/DVD/Setup menu options, but I don't get any additional audio options when playing a DVD and navigating back to the tasks and settings while the DVD is still playing. I checked this for recorded TV files as well.

Ok, check this out though. While in VMC, when I was playing around with the "Back" button without stopping playback, I discovered something. I found a 2-channel dvr-ms TV recording that played back (Care Bears, my daughter's show), the audio played fine in 2-channel. I click the back button without stopping playback. Then I navigate to a 5.1 channel dvr-ms recording (Lost) and click play and voila, there is not only sound, but 5.1 sound!

Did I fix the issue? No, this is just a wacky workaround. When I stop the Lost recording playback for a few seconds, and try to play it again, no sound. When I go back and play the 2-channel Care Bears recording, I get 2 channel sound. When I stop playback, navigate to the Lost 5.1 recording, and play, no sound. I can recreate the workaround to get 5.1 sound, which is better than nothing, but I'm still hoping to solve the issue outright.

UKMedia, do you have any idea of what is going on? Anyone else?

This is starting to sound like a vista corruption of some kind :cry:

. Have you tried inserting the Vista disk and selecting Repair? If that doesn't fix it, I think you will need to do a clean install. Unless anyone else has any ideas?

Regards
UKMedia

tommychambers · Apr 30, 2009

UKMedia said:
This is starting to sound like a vista corruption of some kind. Have you tried inserting the Vista disk and selecting Repair? If that doesn't fix it, I think you will need to do a clean install. Unless anyone else has any ideas?

Regards
UKMedia

From my understanding, since I have SP1 installed, the Vista Repair from my non-SP1 retail disc won't work. I wonder if there is a way to go into the SP1 package and pull off specific files and do a copy-paste?

I ran the chkdsk utility, but that didn't do anything.

I was playing around with GSpot codec troubleshooting program. I thought this output might help in troubleshooting...
Open the GSpot program, opened up the 5.1 Lost dvr-ms recording. In the upper right of the screen, Codec = DVR and Codec Status = "Codec Status Undetermined." When I pressed the GSpot #1 button, it said it was unable to render.
I pressed the MS A/V button 1 then 2 and go this:
Partial Render Failure: Following is the error reported by DirectShow:
0x00040242: [unknown]
(Src)-->>--(A)-->[Decrypt/Tag ]>--(B)-->[ffdshow Video Decoder ]>--(C)-->[Video Renderer]
(Src)-->>--(A)-->[Decrypt/Tag ]>--(B)-->[ffdshow Audio Decoder ]>--(C)-->[Default DirectSound Device]

There was no sound as the video played. However, I got the same effect as in my post above... if I played a 2-channel dvr-ms recording, then opened this same Lost (5.1) recording, I do get sound, although nothing else in the GSpot dashboard changes.

UKMedia · May 1, 2009

tommychambers said:
UKMedia said:

This is starting to sound like a vista corruption of some kind. Have you tried inserting the Vista disk and selecting Repair? If that doesn't fix it, I think you will need to do a clean install. Unless anyone else has any ideas?

Regards
UKMedia

Click to expand...

From my understanding, since I have SP1 installed, the Vista Repair from my non-SP1 retail disc won't work. I wonder if there is a way to go into the SP1 package and pull off specific files and do a copy-paste?

I ran the chkdsk utility, but that didn't do anything.

I was playing around with GSpot codec troubleshooting program. I thought this output might help in troubleshooting...
Open the GSpot program, opened up the 5.1 Lost dvr-ms recording. In the upper right of the screen, Codec = DVR and Codec Status = "Codec Status Undetermined." When I pressed the GSpot #1 button, it said it was unable to render.
I pressed the MS A/V button 1 then 2 and go this:
Partial Render Failure: Following is the error reported by DirectShow:
0x00040242: [unknown]
(Src)-->>--(A)-->[Decrypt/Tag ]>--(B)-->[ffdshow Video Decoder ]>--(C)-->[Video Renderer]
(Src)-->>--(A)-->[Decrypt/Tag ]>--(B)-->[ffdshow Audio Decoder ]>--(C)-->[Default DirectSound Device]

There was no sound as the video played. However, I got the same effect as in my post above... if I played a 2-channel dvr-ms recording, then opened this same Lost (5.1) recording, I do get sound, although nothing else in the GSpot dashboard changes.

You could try re-installing the 32 bit Codec pack.

http://www.majorgeeks.com/download.php?det=5326

If that doesn't work then I can only think a Vista clean install will work now. Sorry that I couldn't help you out with an easier solution.

Regards
UKMedia

tommychambers · May 1, 2009

UKMedia, thanks for your help to this point, I definitely appreciate it. I'll post back here if I ever get around to reinstalling ffdshow and if I get the issue fixed.

Vista 32bit Audio - 5.1, SPDIF, Partial issue

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