[Alpha] usb sound cards support for raspbmc

[aljaz]

(12-12-2012 08:43 AM)Mister Fab Wrote:  

(12-11-2012 02:23 PM)s7mx1 Wrote:  Have you tried the latest nightly?

So I tried the latest nightly yesterday evening, and no optical appeared in the systems settings.
I checked that AE was still activated in the plugins (it was).

I have also recently bought an USB audio card (Terratec aureon) and have the same issues as you do. I started with the latest raspmc install and also later with a new nightly.

I have come to a point that I can get optical output listed when I ran this from the first page of guide:

Code:

for card in $(pactl list short cards | awk '{print $1}') ; do pactl set-card-profile $card multi-sink;
done

This however does not change the list of passthrough devices - only list of output devices - under pass through I can still only choose default.

I also have another problem - ability to connect via ssh settings seems to just dissappear. If I do a new installation or install nightly then ssh is there but after a while (don't know, yet which - reboot or audio settings) renders ssh service unavailable.

[s7mx1]

@aljaz

Are you using pulseaudio 2.1? To find out which version you are using just run

Code:

pulseaudio --version

I noticed there is a bug in pulseaudio 2.0 which does not set correct format support for the digital sink therefore you will not be able to select digital passthrough device. If you are still running pulseaudio 2.0 I would suggest to try step 1 from the first post to install pulseaudio 2.1.

However if pulseaudio 2.1 did not work for you to set correct format (i.e. ac3-iec61937; dts-iec61937 apart from pcm) you need to run

Code:

for sink in $(pactl list short sinks | grep iec958 | awk '{print $1}') ; do pactl set-sink-formats $sink "pcm; ac3-iec61937; dts-iec61937"; done

[aljaz]

(12-12-2012 01:31 PM)s7mx1 Wrote:  @aljaz

Are you using pulseaudio 2.1? To find out which version you are using just run

Code:

pulseaudio --version

Yes, running 2.1.

Now I listed and did some things manually:

Code:

pi@raspbmc:~$ pactl list cards
Card #0
    Name: alsa_card.usb-C-Media_Electronics_Inc._USB_PnP_Sound_Device-00-Device
    Driver: module-alsa-card.c
    Owner Module: 0
    Properties:
        alsa.card = "0"
        alsa.card_name = "USB PnP Sound Device"
        alsa.long_card_name = "C-Media Electronics Inc. USB PnP Sound Device at usb-bcm2708_usb-1.3, full spee"
        alsa.driver_name = "snd_usb_audio"
        device.bus_path = "platform-bcm2708_usb-usb-0:1.3:1.0"
        sysfs.path = "/devices/platform/bcm2708_usb/usb1/1-1/1-1.3/1-1.3:1.0/sound/card0"
        udev.id = "usb-C-Media_Electronics_Inc._USB_PnP_Sound_Device-00-Device"
        device.bus = "usb"
        device.vendor.id = "0ccd"
        device.vendor.name = "C-Media Electronics Inc.      "
        device.product.id = "0077"
        device.product.name = "USB PnP Sound Device"
        device.serial = "C-Media_Electronics_Inc._USB_PnP_Sound_Device"
        device.string = "0"
        device.description = "USB PnP Sound Device"
        module-udev-detect.discovered = "1"
        device.icon_name = "audio-card-usb"
    Profiles:
        multi-sink: Analog Stereo Output + Analog Surround 4.0 Output + Analog Surround 4.1 Output + Analog Surround 5.0 Output + Analog Surround 5.1 Output + Analog Surround 7.1 Output + Digital Stereo (IEC958) Output + Digital Surround 4.0 (IEC958/AC3) Output + Digital Surround 5.1 (IEC958/AC3) Output + Digital Surround 5.1 (IEC958/DTS) Output + Digital Stereo (HDMI) Output (sinks: 11, sources: 0, priority. 0)
        output:analog-stereo: Analog Stereo Output (sinks: 1, sources: 0, priority. 6000)
        output:analog-stereo+input:analog-mono: Analog Stereo Output + Analog Mono Input (sinks: 1, sources: 1, priority. 6001)
        output:iec958-stereo: Digital Stereo (IEC958) Output (sinks: 1, sources: 0, priority. 5500)
        output:iec958-stereo+input:analog-mono: Digital Stereo (IEC958) Output + Analog Mono Input (sinks: 1, sources: 1, priority. 5501)
        input:analog-mono: Analog Mono Input (sinks: 0, sources: 1, priority. 1)
        off: Off (sinks: 0, sources: 0, priority. 0)
    Active Profile: output:analog-stereo+input:analog-mono
    Ports:
        analog-output-speaker: Speakers (priority: 10000)
            Part of profile(s): multi-sink, output:analog-stereo, output:analog-stereo+input:analog-mono
        iec958-stereo-output: Digital Output (S/PDIF) (priority: 0)
            Part of profile(s): multi-sink, output:iec958-stereo, output:iec958-stereo+input:analog-mono
        analog-input-microphone: Microphone (priority: 8700)
            Part of profile(s): output:analog-stereo+input:analog-mono, output:iec958-stereo+input:analog-mono, input:analog-mono

Code:

pactl set-card-profile 0 output:iec958-stereo
pactl set-sink-formats 2 "pcm; ac3-iec61937; dts-iec61937"

then xbmc audio settings, set audio device to digital out, passthrough as well. Run an AC3 movie, then

Code:

pi@raspbmc:~$ pactl list short sinks
2    alsa_output.usb-C-Media_Electronics_Inc._USB_PnP_Sound_Device-00-Device.iec958-stereo    module-alsa-card.c    s16le 2ch 44100Hz    RUNNING

But my DTS/DD able AV receiver doesn't get it through. Anywhere else I can look this up (some log or something)?

[Khivar]

(12-12-2012 10:37 AM)s7mx1 Wrote:  @Khivar

You better ask others as I don't have any usb sound card capable of digital passthrough and even I did I don't have any receivers to test it.

Okay thanks. So if anyone knows whether it can do DTS / DTS core / Dolby Digital 5.1 bitstream or not, feel free to post

[Mister Fab]

Okay, so after a few reboots, I can get the optical menus in the XBMC system settings. (but I didn't change anything from the configuration I made before. No matter, the usb car works! )

Mp3 play well trough the optical.

The remaining problem, I have no audio on HD movies.

DTS and Dolby digital capable receiver are activated, passthrough output device is set on "Default (pulse audio)" , but my A/V receiver doesn't get the signal.

[s7mx1]

When I have time (bit busy at the moment) I will write xbmc addon to set pulseaudio output so users can set the output including passthrough device properly.

To have passthrough you will definitely need to pick the passthrough device and you may need to set sink format manually if the list of device only has default.

(12-14-2012 01:33 PM)Mister Fab Wrote:  Okay, so after a few reboots, I can get the optical menus in the XBMC system settings. (but I didn't change anything from the configuration I made before. No matter, the usb car works! )

Mp3 play well trough the optical.

The remaining problem, I have no audio on HD movies.

DTS and Dolby digital capable receiver are activated, passthrough output device is set on "Default (pulse audio)" , but my A/V receiver doesn't get the signal.

[richjh]

I am interested in getting a USB sound card to do 5.1 from the raspberry pi.

Could someone who has a USB sound card check if they do support ac3 and dts passthrough using mplayer?

I think the steps would be to:
- Download mplayer onto your raspberry pi.
- Download sample ac3 file http://www.lynnepublishing.com/surround/...d_test.ac3
- Download sample dts file http://www.avenard.org/files/media/media...st-DTS.mkv
- Run "aplay -l" to work out which card number your usb card is, e.g. if the "aplay -l" has a line "card 0: DAC [USB Audio DAC], device 0: USB Audio [USB Audio]" then your usb card is card 0.
- You might have to stop xbmc in case there is a conflict for the audio card.
- Test ac3 passthrough by running "mplayer -ao alsa:device=hw=0.0 -afm hwac3 -channels 6 www_lynnemusic_com_surround_test.ac3"
- Test dts passthrough by running "mplayer -ao alsa:device=hw=0.0 -afm hwac3 -channels 6 idch_AviaSurroundTest-DTS.mkv"
- In the above examples if aplay -l showed that your USB soud card was device 1 then replace "alsa:device=hw=0.0" with "alsa:device=hw=1.0".

If it plays the bitstream at least we know the cards support it.

[s7mx1]

mplayer is useless unless you want to hear audio only as there is no hardware video acceleration for pi with mplayer.

(12-14-2012 01:42 PM)richjh Wrote:  I am interested in getting a USB sound card to do 5.1 from the raspberry pi.

Could someone who has a USB sound card check if they do support ac3 and dts passthrough using mplayer?

I think the steps would be to:
- Download mplayer onto your raspberry pi.
- Download sample ac3 file http://www.lynnepublishing.com/surround/...d_test.ac3
- Download sample dts file http://www.avenard.org/files/media/media...st-DTS.mkv
- Run "aplay -l" to work out which card number your usb card is, e.g. if the "aplay -l" has a line "card 0: DAC [USB Audio DAC], device 0: USB Audio [USB Audio]" then your usb card is card 0.
- You might have to stop xbmc in case there is a conflict for the audio card.
- Test ac3 passthrough by running "mplayer -ao alsa:device=hw=0.0 -afm hwac3 -channels 6 www_lynnemusic_com_surround_test.ac3"
- Test dts passthrough by running "mplayer -ao alsa:device=hw=0.0 -afm hwac3 -channels 6 idch_AviaSurroundTest-DTS.mkv"
- In the above examples if aplay -l showed that your USB soud card was device 1 then replace "alsa:device=hw=0.0" with "alsa:device=hw=1.0".

If it plays the bitstream at least we know the cards support it.

[Mister Fab]

(12-14-2012 01:40 PM)s7mx1 Wrote:  When I have time (bit busy at the moment) I will write xbmc addon to set pulseaudio output so users can set the output including passthrough device properly.

To have passthrough you will definitely need to pick the passthrough device and you may need to set sink format manually if the list of device only has default.

Thank you very much for your answers s7mx1.

Is there a commandline to set sink format manually I can use now or should I wait for your addon?

I'm sorry for my lack of knowledge with linux...

[s7mx1]

follow "Digital passthrough " on first post of this thread and after that if you are still not able to get listed passthrough device then try this

Code:

for sink in $(pactl list short sinks | grep iec958 | awk '{print $1}') ; do pactl set-sink-formats $sink "pcm; ac3-iec61937; dts-iec61937"; done