Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion The Water Cooler HTPC

Yup, I'm pretty impressed at how easy it was to do. I figured there had to be a program to do it when I figured out what the problem was but it took me a while to find Moninfo.

I'm not sure, but I think the DD TrueHD entries are missing from my AVR's EDID but I haven't yet been able to get my computer to bitstream anything so I'm not sure it matters at this point.

I'm just really happy to finally have it working right and not have a total mess of cables connecting everything together. It has also been fun playing some now older games with the settings maxed out and barely stressing the system.

It is really pretty amazing how much better everything sounds using hdmi audio instead of the analog outs. The biggest difference is in the subwoofer channel and the overall signal to noise ratio.

Help me, mister wizards -

I've googled the sh!t out of this already, so I AM trying to help myself.

Running Ubuntu 10.04 (Lucid Lynx) on a Zotac Zbox HD-11 nettop. Trying to make this the living room music streaming appliance.

I fiddled endlessly trying to get HDMI audio to work and finally gave up. I think you CAN get it to work through XBMC, but that's not "enough", because I need both a digital source (for the primary listening area) and an analog source (so that the Onkyo TX-SR805 can feed zone2 with the music signal whether we are listening to it in the main area or not).

I have it hooked up via SPDIF and also analog.

I can hear system sounds and browser-based streaming in both zones just fine.

I'm trying to use Rhythmbox as a music player, and no matter what I do, I can't get any sound in Zone2. Same thing for XBMC. Primary zone is fine, but don't seem to have the analog output. But I know it is working at a system level.

Any ideas?

I have a new Onkyo (3008) and no digital music (from HDMI output, per the manual)to zone 2 analog preouts, and I think that applies to zone 2 amplified also.

I have this need also. I'm thinking (for my situ). HDMI from intel core Audio out, then installing the realtek mb soundcard drivers and running analog connects to another input on the rcvr for zone 2, like CD input. (but havent had a chance to go there yet).

Lets keep each other up to date on this "issue"!

Jeff

Righto, Jeff.

The receiver part isn't "new" - I was previously using a similar setup with a PC, so I know you need to have both the digital and analog cables connected to accommodate both the optimal quality and the extra zone.

I am using the preouts for zone 2, not the amplified ones.

Good luck with the HDMI. I think it might be more do-able in Windoze. Like I said, I spent a painful number of hours on that part in Ubuntu before giving up.

I have checked sound preferences and alsamixer and everything seems okay.

With that fancy-schmancy 3008, why would you need to connect the PC? Can't you just use the network streaming feature?

Well I "could", but I just recently became aware of "Radio Paradise HD" so with HTPC a running streaming music with pretty pictures thru HDMI on HTPC (or the music section of the HTPC w/photo gallery), then I need the analog Zone 2 pre outs for the same audio on whole house audio .............................................................. I want it all !

I think the analogs to a different input for zone 2 might work (hopefully no delay) have you tried that?

And I know nutin about this Ubuntu..... wont even try to go there too lazy to learn another one right now. Have to learn Server 2008, SQLServer and 5 other new programs for work right now and Im not an IT guy!

I am surprised Chris hasn't responded, I know he uses Ubuntu. I played around with it for awhile then realized I could hack my DNS-323 to run Twonky and stopped messing with Ubuntu.

I haven't responded, because I don't have any good advice. I use Ubuntu all day long for work, but when it comes to media playback I use Windows or a dedicated player (like the PS3); most of the time the player. Even if Windows is better at audio over HDMI it even leaves a lot to be desired (like changing channel count when playing stereo audio vs. surround--it always uses all the channels you have configured).

If I were using Ubuntu for any sort of media playback, I'd limit it to being a DLNA server placed in a back room for a small client (WD TV, PS3, etc.) connected over the network. (As it is now, I just sneakernet everything out to the living room and copy it locally to the 500 GB HD I've installed in my PS3.)

Despair.

I get analog audio from a browser and from Audacity, but NOT from either Rhythmbox or Banshee.

Baffling.

So, if I CAN'T get this to work at the system level, is there a way to add an external appliance (a DAC? a ubuntu capable external sound card?) to which I could feed either a USB or SPDIF and would passthrough the SPDIF and also output analog? I suppose I wouldn't need the passthrough if the DAC was of the same quality as that in the Onkyo.

But, you know, looking for cheap, not some stupidly expensive DAC.

SOLVED (for me)

Zotac zBox HD-ID11
Ubuntu 10.10, 64bit fully updated
(with Partners, Independent and Medibuntu repositories enabled, not that i think it made any difference)

the following instructions are taken from this blog:
http://ossnotebook.blogspot.com/search?updated-min=2010-01-01T00%3A00%3A00-08%3A00&updated-max=2011-01-01T00%3A00%3A00-08%3A00&max-results=14

Quoted (with minor modification):
on alsamixer press F6 to select the nvidia card, enable all s/PDIF devices

# list the devices
aplay -l
# my sound gets enabled when I play on device speaker-test -D plughw:1,7 -r 44100, after that the sounds starts to work. It's important to use the -r 44100 since the drivers are not setting up the correct frequency.
speaker-test -D plughw:1,3 -r 44100
speaker-test -D plughw:1,7 -r 44100
speaker-test -D plughw:1,8 -r 44100
speaker-test -D plughw:1,9 -r 44100



In case you want to make a permanent change for the hdmi sound as the deafult card you can update /usr/share/alsa/alsa.conf and change these lines:

defaults.ctl.card 0
defaults.pcm.card 0
defaults.pcm.device 0

to this:

defaults.ctl.card NVidia
defaults.pcm.card Nvidia
defaults.pcm.device 7

ENDQUOTE
(note that in the original blog they used device 9. i found that i had to use device 7 and i have changed the instructions to reflect that. presumably this will be the case for other HD-ID11 users.)

this is all i had to do. i now have sound through HDMI to my tv system-wide

good luck

http://www.google.com/search?q=Zotac+Zbox+HD-11+&sourceid=ie7&rls=com.microsoft:en-us:IE-ContextMenu&ie=&oe=&rlz=1I7ADFA_en

http://www.zotacusa.com/forum/topic/2924-zbox-hd-id11-linux-no-hdmi-audio/

Thanks, Jeff. I will take a look when I get home. I suspect my problem IS somewhere in alsa or pulse audio.

That thread seems to reference both alsa and oss, which is a little confusing to me.

For a variety of reasons (mostly related to cabling) I'm not using the HDMI for audio, only for video.

Did I mention that - some days - learning is painful?

Really appreciate your help, Jeff.