The VideoLAN Forums

I didn't find the answer in these forums so far...I want to send un-decoded multichannel audio to my surround sound receiver, ideally both 48000kbps AC3 and 44100kbps DTS-CD data streams.

The problem seems to be that my pass-through sound card is on a USB port, and VLC player can't see it. It decodes the dts to stereo which is seen as Pro-Logic or Stereo by my receiver. Does a great job in its way, though.

Does anyone know how to make the player recognize my outboard soundcard, or just force s/pdif? The operating system will then send the output to the specified sound device. Details are:

WinXP
VLC 0.7.1
Onkyo UD-5b USB-to-Toslink Adaptor (44.1/48 passthrough)

Thanks for any help.

donEsteban

VLC uses the default sound device as set in windows control panel. If you check the "spdif" option in preferences it will pass undecoded data by default.

Thanks for the reply.

What I am experiencing is that the player sends out undecoded output only when it sees that s/pdif is "available". In other words, if I select from control panel my inboard sound card, which supports s/pdif, I will get the digital output. Unfortunately, this card re-samples the 44.1 khz dts to 48.0khz, as most sound cards do when they aren't receiving signal from a hardware player. thus I can play ac3 files from hard drive (dvd rips) but not dts-cd files.

That is why I have the outboard usb sound card, which is designed not to resample like the SoundBlaster line of products. Even though it is selected from control panel as the default audio device, VLC evidently cannot see that it supports s/pdif, and turns the 5.1 channel dts-cd data stream into stereo, even when I tell VLC to "use s/pdif output when available".

I have another software player, JRiver Media Jukebox, that is not so "smart" and does output dts-cd s/pdif to my outboard sound card, so I know it is possible, and daily see that it works in 5.1 surround. But Media Jukebox doesn't play ac3. Consequently I have to toggle between 2 sound cards and 2 media players to go between ac3 and dts, and I can't do this reliably after several beers in the middle of a party

I'm hoping VLC can be the player that will play both ac3 48000 and dts 44100 with s/pdif output, into my usb-to-toslink outboard passthrough sound card, but I would have to override the "if available" check, or disable the dts-to-stereo decoding that is going on now.

I appreciate the help. At worst, I may have to keep toggling and go easy on the beers.

donEsteban

I'm experiencing the same thing with my Xitel Pro Hifi Link that is connected via USB to my laptop.

Any news on this?


A detailed description of the problem I'm experiencing is available in my post here:

http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?s=&threadid=85535


Regards,

eXistenZ_69

Gibalou,

could you please look into this?


Thanks,

eXistenZ_69

Using VLC 0.8.1 on WinXP SP1 by the way...

if you solve this problem you will also have solved my problem that I asked for about 6 months ago.. Some way to choose sound output device that differs from windows default output device..

just like winamp has..

HI!
I have z-680 speakers, wich have ac3 and dts decoding, so i have an audigy with digital coax out, and I use bsplayer with ffdshow audio codecs for sound outpput.
This way, i can configure ffdshow for spdif output of dolby digital (ac3) and dts to the speakers (passthrough).
I can play ac3 sound and dts sound files this way in bs player. The decoing is made in the speakers
Good kuck
Sk

HI!
I have z-680 speakers, wich have ac3 and dts decoding, so i have an audigy with digital coax out, and I use bsplayer with ffdshow audio codecs for sound outpput.
This way, i can configure ffdshow for spdif output of dolby digital (ac3) and dts to the speakers (passthrough).
I can play ac3 sound and dts sound files this way in bs player. The decoing is made in the speakers
Good kuck
Sk

Thanks for the suggestion. But ffdshow doesn't work for me either. See the thread at Doom9 forum for the details (link higher in this thread).


Regards,

eXistenZ_69

donesteban, i get the same problem with VLC. I need to know how to "force" VLC's behaviour to output to S/PDIF rather than rely on "if available" because this doesn't work. I can force behaviour with dumb players and I get 5.1 audio working perfectly. With VLC i always get downmix to PCM 2.0

any solution?