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Silent stream bug? - Page 3

post #61 of 109
10/9/12 at 7:58am
Thread Starter 
ok so i've made a test version of the program for you which isn't a great deal different apart from when it loads, it has a messagebox which will display all your active sound cards and your default sound card. Can you see what it says on there and perhaps paste a pic of it in here if it shows anything unexpected? (It might not even work as expected, i only have 1 sound card so couldn't test it!) To run it, just extract the files somewhere, make sure the normal version isn't running, and run the new executable. It won't overwrite anything from your normal installation.

http://www.marcsapps.co.uk/avrag-test.zip

please no-one else downloading expecting some fancy new beta smile.gif i want to find out what's going on with Gyakusetsu's pc before i implement anything.
Edited by MarcD2K11 - 10/9/12 at 2:08pm
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post #62 of 109
10/9/12 at 3:20pm
First of all, I am truly flattered that you wrote a program specifically for me... I've never experienced this level of help from someone in this area of technology before!! I know it probably isn't as difficult as I would think, but it is still very much appreciated smile.gif

I activated all devices and got my system running at ideal settings/configuration.

Here is the window that pops up:



From that information, it looks like things are running correctly.
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post #63 of 109
10/9/12 at 5:01pm
Thread Starter 
not a problem, I enjoy working on it, thanks for testing it for me smile.gif It does indeed look like it should be working judging by those settings. I realised this afternoon that i have an onboard sound card and have since enabled that and I see pretty much the same thing in my dialog box as you have in yours.

If you disable the SPDIF/HDMI devices in "playback devices" do they then disappear from that list, and does it make any difference to the issues you were experiencing? (if you're worried you can't enable them again as they vanish from the list, right click on the blank space in the list and you have the option to display disabled devices)

Also, I did make a tiny change to how the sound device is picked, which i needed to do to make it work with the new code I added, so instead of picking the sound device itself, it's being told to specifically use the one it lists as default in that dialog box, so I don't know if that will have any perceivable effect or not on the offchance that the previous version was picking the wrong card for some reason, ie picking the first card on your list instead of the "default" device?
Edited by MarcD2K11 - 10/9/12 at 5:11pm
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post #64 of 109
10/9/12 at 5:12pm
Nope, even running the new .exe, the problem still persists...


Also, disabling those other devices just removes them from the list on the message window. No other effects noticed.
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post #65 of 109
10/9/12 at 5:34pm
Thread Starter 
ok, thanks again for testing.

just to confirm, you are on Windows 7? I know the audio architecture i'm using won't work on anything earlier, but the program may still run..

i've just tested changing the bitrate of the shared-mode stream to 96/24 like you have yours set to and it didn't make a difference on my system, but could you try setting yours to the normal 48/16 and see if it makes any difference as i believe that's the bitrate i used for the wav.

also if it is running on the correct device, in the volume mixer, AVR Audio Guard should be visible when your AVR 1600 is the device being displayed, not either of the others.

this thing with your receiver keeping the bitstreams open indefinitely makes me think that there's something to that, but whether it's the computer or the receiver doing it, it's hard to say..

aside from the above, which are clutching at straws a bit, I can't think of much else to check at the moment, this one has me stumped.. anyone out there want to buy me a HK AVR 1600 to play with? wink.gif
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post #66 of 109
10/9/12 at 6:09pm
Hmm... switching to 48/16 didn't help. I believe windows upmixes all played audio to the specified bit/sample rates anyway (well not upmix, but plays normal audio content in a higher quality container), so I don't believe that would be the problem.

I do see the AVRAG volume in the mixer, though. And yes, running windows 7.

I did do a little experiment just to see if my AVR might be the problem. I generated a silent .wav file and had it play in both VLC and Winamp and it didn't register to my AVR... apparently it can't be outsmarted by silent streams. Something else strange is that it also didn't recognize "brown noise" or "Pink noise" , but it did play "white noise" ...which I would rather die than be forced to listen to any of those all the time.

Long story short, my AVR is too smart for it's own good and seems to only recognize real audible sound as an audio stream. It also stays on the last played mode (DD, DTS, etc.) until a new stream is detected... probably to because there is no "standby" mode for it to default to and to make it easier to change settings/modes for each bitstream type. I believe if your program worked for this particular AVR, it would immediately go back to the PCM mode when DTS or DD had finished playing.

I might try experimenting with a super high or super low ( to the point of being inaudible and not interfering with normal audio) frequency at a low volume to see if that works.
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post #67 of 109
10/10/12 at 9:46am
Thread Starter 
that is some strange behaviour but I suppose it can be useful sometimes, ie if you're playing lots of bitstream tracks one after the other like an sacd or something. What happens if you play a wav with sound in it, then another wav afterwards? Do you miss the first part of the 2nd wav or just the first one? If the receiver is staying in pcm mode after playing a sound rather than silence, i could perhaps modify the program to play sound rather than silence for the first half second or so, which should be missed while the receiver is switching..
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post #68 of 109
10/22/12 at 1:36pm
This is great!! I had an AMD/ATI card with my Onkyo NR-809 and the audio switching wasn't as noticeable. I just recently switched to an Intel HD4000 based system, and the delay was killing me.

This fixed an annoying little issue for me. Thanks!

Sent a donation.
Edited by mogulman1 - 10/22/12 at 1:42pm
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post #69 of 109
10/22/12 at 3:05pm
Thread Starter 
thanks, much appreciated smile.gif

and to everyone, just a heads-up on the status of the next update. I will be adding in a function to re-initialize your hdmi devices for those occasions that you switch channels on your tv or receiver, and when you switch back, windows says you haven't got a sound card anymore, or decides to not even show you a picture on your tv. It's more or less there, but i want to perfect it before i go live with it, so that means probably after I complete Borderlands 2 biggrin.gif
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post #70 of 109
10/29/12 at 9:39pm
I'VE GOT IT!!!

It seems as though the silent stream you have been outputting wasn't in enough channels for my AVR to decide it was real.

I generated a 7.1 silent file with Audacity and tried looping it with VLC media player... and guess what... NO MORE CUTOUTS!

Here is the file I used that worked:

In WAV format

Even when I set MS Sound mapper to Stereo, it still seems to work perfectly. Maybe it was a matter of it being a 24-bit file? or at 48kHz? meh, I don't know... AV tech boggles me sometimes...


I know this is a lot to ask (or maybe it isn't, I don't know how easy this is for you), but could you try replacing the silent stream in your program with this one I created? it seems to be just enough for my harman/kardon to recognize without experimenting with inaudible noises to loop instead. I will love you forever if this works and I will definitely donate to your cause when I get the cash!!! You've been so helpful! :hugs:
Edited by Gyakusetsu - 10/29/12 at 10:01pm
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post #71 of 109
11/1/12 at 1:27am
Thread Starter 
@gyakusetsu - sorry, i didn't get an email about your reply but yeah i'll give it a go. I used to actually loop the wav file in the past so i'll have a go at putting that back in. Your exe will just be a tag larger than normal due to the size of the wav! I'll PM you a link to it once i've done it.

****

Info for anyone thinking of getting Windows 8: AVR Audio Guard does work in it, with a couple of caveats:

1) Windows 8 does not load your startup items at startup! It only loads them once you have clicked on the "Desktop" item in the modern UI menu, so if you don't load that then AVR Audio Guard will not load and you will not get the benefits in modern UI apps. If however you load the desktop then go back to the modern UI, AVR Audio Guard will work on both.

2) I don't know if this goes for ATI, but for Nvidia, Windows 8 auto installs the newest Nvidia driver, but does not install the the correct HD audio driver to go with it, which leads to a weird issue where AVR Audio Guard cuts out when you scroll your mouse in "File Explorer" aka Windows explorer. Just install the proper drivers from Nvidia and it will work as it should.
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post #72 of 109
11/12/12 at 5:51am
I seem to be having a problem with this as well.

An outline first though as I have a bit of a complicated setup (not really but...)

I run Win8 Pro x64

AMD 6850 with 12.10 catalyst drivers. I do have an Geforce 9300 onboard, with HDMI out, and Realtek onboard analog sound but its all disabled. I also run an external USB DAC (ie. a USB soundcard - a Benchmarl DAC1 Pre). So I have two enable outputs, the USB DAC and AMD HDMI Out.

My issue. Boils down to foobar I think, though I don't know why.

To get bit perfect streaming to my USB DAC I do run foobar in WASAPI exclusive mode, but my output device is the USB DAC. Everything else is set to use the windows default which is the AMD HDMI Out.

I leave Foobar running as a music server, and it works, but by doing so doesn't allow your program to run (I get the red speaker icon). Stop foobar and restart your program and its green and it is running as normal. No more clicks.

I have a feeling this is actually a problem with the windows mixer (ie. there being only one mixer for the PC, and not one per output device) but perhaps there is a solution that allows you to select a specific input to run the silent stream and ignore others?
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post #73 of 109
11/12/12 at 6:29am
Thread Starter 
There should be a mixer for each device, though some things appear in all of them regardless of which one they're running on. If you click on the arrow on the first item in your mixer, which should be the sound device, then you can select different devices. I've tested using potplayer sending audio to a 2nd audio device and it doesn't break the program, which at present sends the silent stream to the default audio device only. Perhaps the foobar server is taking over the wrong sound device but playing through the right one? If you lose your windows sounds when foobar is running (with avrag turned off) then it would certainly suggest that this is the case.

edit: the next release will let you choose which soundcard to output the sound to. Don't know if that'll help you or not if foobar is hogging the wrong sound device, but it's worth a try smile.gif
Edited by MarcD2K11 - 11/13/12 at 5:44pm
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post #74 of 109
11/13/12 at 5:54am
Thread Starter 
So, i'm compiling a list of things i've put, or am planning to put in the next version, please let me know if you can think of anything else

1) hdmi re-initialize function to re-enable sound card/display if they get disabled when switching inputs on your AVR [done]
2) allow user to restart Windows Audio service in case it crashes, again can happen when switching inputs [done]
3) choose between two different silent stream modes, single and looping which will determine whether the silent wav plays once or plays over and over (based on the fix i implemented for gyakusetsu) [done]
4) allow user to put their own wav file in the program folder to be used instead of the built-in one incase a particular sample rate is needed (more of a debug option for gyakusetsu but it's in there now so i will leave it in as it may benefit someone) [done]
5) allow user to select which sound card to output the stream to, as opposed to using the default [done]
6) allow user to set the program to run as an administrator (useful in Windows 8 as no account has full admin rights apart from Administrator) [done]
7) new UI / status icons and ability to revert to old status icons if you prefer them [done]

i'm also thinking of making a supporter version as a gift to those who've donated including a larger choice of status icons and the ability to add your own ones, but I don't know if that's of any interest to you guys?
Edited by MarcD2K11 - 11/13/12 at 5:44pm
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post #75 of 109
11/13/12 at 6:04am
Thanks for creating a nifty software but some strange things has changed recently.
I would assume the change comes from nVidia's HDMI drivers.
In the past, after I turn off the TV (which automatically turns off the AVR), after I turn the TV back on to resume work, HDMI sound is available approximately 80% of the time.
However probably since last month, the frequency of having HDMI Audio upon turning the TV/AVR back on has gone down to 0%...
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post #76 of 109
11/13/12 at 6:07am
Thread Starter 
yeah i'm getting this a lot more now as well.. Not every time, but definitely if i've left the tv/avr off for a while. It's even worse on Windows 8 too as my screen resolution goes down to 1024x768 half the time too frown.gif but when i've released the next version you should be able to restore the audio by using an option in the program or by a pressing a hotkey combination smile.gif
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post #77 of 109
11/15/12 at 7:33am
Thread Starter 
Version 2.3.0.0 has now been uploaded to the server, so you should get an update notification the next time the program runs.

changes are pretty much what I outlined a couple of posts ago.

If you find a bug either report it here or email me

thanks
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post #78 of 109
11/19/12 at 3:46am
Hello Marc and, first of all, thank you for your great effort on this awesome program!

I was wondering if you could check my thread here because i guess i'm affected by something similiar to Giakusetsu's problem; if it's so i think it might be useful if you implement some kind of option into AVR Guard where we could select at which frequency (44000. 48000, 96000, etc.) we want to send the silent stream to the reciever. Thank You!
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post #79 of 109
11/19/12 at 4:17am
Thread Starter 
Hi cyberrage,

the sample rate of shared-mode audio is controlled by Windows, so whatever sample rate the wav is, it will be played at what you set in the Advanced settings for your sound device (default is 16/48)

I have left the option to use a custom wav file in the software though, so if you drop a wav called silentstream.wav into c:\users\username\appdata\local\avr audio guard it will use that instead (has to be a normal 2 channel wav, not a multichannel pcm) so you can play around with using different bitrate wav files, and different sample rates in your settings and see if you can find a working combination smile.gif if you drop a non-silent wav in that folder then it'll play that too so you can double check that the function is actually working before playing about with silent wavs

Also try setting the stream mode to "looping" if you haven't already as that is what helped Gyakusetsu

i'd recommend using "audacity" for making wav files
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post #80 of 109
11/19/12 at 4:26am
Thank you Mark for the fast reply! I will now try with a 48khz wav file and loop audio mode, and let you know if it works.

Just to add some info, when i stop a playing movie (let's say in DTS/DD) running at 24hz, xbmc switches back to GUI at 50hz and this is where i loose audio, infact i cant hear gui sounds or play flac/mp3s anymore until i reset the audio device; BUT if during the Hz switch (while the tv is still blank) i keep remote buttons pressed to trigger GUI sounds, everything is fine! and i dont loose the audio stream... that's why i thought it might be a problem of frequency. Any thoughts? Thank you again!
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post #81 of 109
11/19/12 at 4:33am
Thread Starter 
hmm that is strange.. have you got the official intel audio/video drivers installed? I only ask because after I upgraded to Windows 8, it automatically installed the newest Nvidia drivers, complete with Nvidia control panel, so i thought they were the correct ones, but i was experiencing weird audio issues, for instance AVR Audio Guard would crash every time i scrolled my mouse in "File Explorer" so I downloaded and installed the driver from Nvidia and after that it worked fine.

It does sound like a HDCP problem when switching modes, if your audio device actually gets disabled. What does the tray icon for AVR Audio Guard show?
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post #82 of 109
11/19/12 at 6:20am
Alright, i did all the tests and this is what i found out, with default stream mode and xbmc running:

- open dts/dd movie > tv switch from 50hz to 24hz - DTS/DD on AVR - everything fine
- stop movie > tv switch from 24hz to 50hz - Stereo on AVR - if i move gui selection right after the hz switch there is no sound, if i wait from 5 to 10 sec AVR Guard icon turns green and my avr switch from Stereo to Multichan PCM, after this if i move into xbmc gui the avr switch back to Stereo and in 3 seconds i can hear the sound again. I guess the 3 secs are because my avr changes from pcm(avrguard) to stereo(xbmc gui)

So... i guess this kinda solves my problem, the only 2 concerns that still remain are:

1) why do i have to resample all xbmc audio to 48khz if i want to hear audio on wasapi? My guess is this is a intel hdmi driver problem under windows 8 for 44khz.
2) why does my avr changes to pcm for avrguard? this is annoying because i lost 3 seconds of audio on every switch from pcm to stereo, and i've no idea why this happens still

If you have any thoughts about these concerns, especially on number 2 since the first 1 is 99% driver related, that would be very much appreciated!
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post #83 of 109
11/19/12 at 6:28am
Thread Starter 
well AVR Audio Guard is meant to switch to PCM because that's the mode that the windows mixer outputs its shared-mode streams to on a multichannel system, if it's switching to stereo in xbmc it probably means xbmc is using an exclusive mode stream for its interface and thus your receiver switches to dolby stereo for stereo sound. Try unticking the "allow applications to take exclusive control of this device" option in the settings of the sound card and see if the same thing occurs in the xmbc gui. (obviously you won't get bitstreaming in your videos so i wouldnt recommend leaving it ticked forever but it should at least determine what xbmc is doing).
Edited by MarcD2K11 - 11/19/12 at 6:33am
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post #84 of 109
11/19/12 at 6:33am
Yes, there's no need to try. XBMC got two separate configs for passthrough and normal audio output and i have them both set to wasapi, which is wasapi(event) exclusive for xbmc. If i set the normal audio output to directx instead of wasapi it goes on pcm shared mode... but if i do so i would not use wasapi for flacs/mp3s and that would be a shame =( *thinking*

*update* i've tried with directsound for normal audio output and if i use that AVR Guard doesn't even kick in =\ the icon is green but after i stop a movie the avr just remain on stereo and sound doesn't work... weird, before the movie it was using multichannel pcm thought.
Edited by cyberrage - 11/19/12 at 6:40am
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post #85 of 109
11/20/12 at 5:14am
It appears that after using the Marc's tool to reinitialize HDMI Audio, speaker settings will be defaulted to 2 channels.
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post #86 of 109
11/20/12 at 5:16am
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by carageuw View Post

It appears that after using the Marc's tool to reinitialize HDMI Audio, speaker settings will be defaulted to 2 channels.

weird, all it does is turn the display off to force the handshake, doesn't touch your sound settings at all.
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post #87 of 109
11/20/12 at 7:52am
Quote:
Originally Posted by MarcD2K11 View Post

weird, all it does is turn the display off to force the handshake, doesn't touch your sound settings at all.

It does not happen every time, but occasionally I do find audio settings defaulting to 16bit, 48KHz DVD resolution from my 24bit, 192K setting or the speaker settings have been defaulted to stereo instead of 5.1.
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post #88 of 109
11/23/12 at 3:13am
it works! It fix the short audio delays on my PC. Thanks mark.
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post #89 of 109
12/20/12 at 10:48am
It appears that the hotkey for reinitializing the HDMI Device (Ctrl + Shift + I) is a common photoshop keyboard shortcut for inverting the selected area of an image (a command I happen to use a lot). I re-mapped that command, but I still hit it often out of habit and I find myself wishing that it could be disabled in your app as I don't really use it...
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post #90 of 109
12/20/12 at 11:00am
Thread Starter 
hmm ok, i'll do something about that in the next release
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