XBMC Softmute

[ddl]

For whatever reason, after switching from XBMC Frodo to XBMC Gotham.  I notice that the softmute does not work anymore.  Did I miss something with this upgrade?

[Kalle]

Get sure you have all these steps done.

http://voxcommando.com/mediawiki/index.php?title=Installation_XBMC_Frodo

[jitterjames]

Probably missing VoxTools addon.

[ddl]

I have followed all of the steps suggested but it still does not softmute. I am running the latest version of VC.  Everything else seem to work just fine.  Its just not muting when an announcement is made.  Any other suggestions?

[jitterjames]

No.  I am using XBMC 13.1 and softmute works fine, unless I am using digital pass-through in which case XBMC volume cannot be changed by any means.

[ddl]

Ok, I think the digital pass through is my issue.  Is there a way to have VC switch the output to analog then back to digital?

[jitterjames]

If you are not sure, you should turn digital pass-through off manually in XBMC.

I posted XML for a VC command to toggle digital pass-through on and off somewhere else on this forum but even if XBMC could do it while playing back digital audio, it would not be seamless and doing it repeatedly might damage your equipment.  Under what circumstances would you do this?

[ddl]

Well, I was just looking to simplify somethings in my setup.  I have an HTPC that is feeding digital audio from an optical cable (spdif) to a converter that converts the spdif digital signal to analog for acceptance in my whole house audio system (which is an analog device).  Setting it up using the spdif eliminates me having to connect a separate 3.5m to RCA analog cable to the HTPC in order to receive audio through out the house from the whole house audio system.

The problem I believe I am having is that the digital pass-through does not work well with this kind of setup (unless I'm missing something).  As it stands...  When I assign the output from XBMC to be direct I get audio throughout my entire system with just one spdif cable connected to the digital to analog converter.  The problem that I am having with this setup is that the XBMC Softmute does not seem to work at all.

On the other hand.  If I connect a 3.5m to RCA analog cable from my HTPC to the whole house audio system.  Everything works perfectly. The problem that I have with this is that I have to remember to manually switch the settings on the HTPC to digital in order to take advantage of the digital codecs for the audio in my home theater receiver.  Even in this kind of setup I will only get audio from my HT receiver to the theater area only and not the whole house audio system.

[jitterjames]

In the end you'll have to figure out what works for your particular setup.

It sounds like maybe you are confusing digital pass-through with just "digital" vs "analog".  You don't need to use analog outputs for volume control or audio output sharing to work.  I use only an optical spdif output from my htpc to my digital receiver.  When digital pass-through is active, you can't control volume on anything but the receiver itself, but when not using digital pass-through, everything works normally including volume, TTS, and soft-mute/unmute.  It is still all digital and all going through my digital output.  In my case, I don't touch the XBMC setting for digital pass-through, and it only turns on whenever I play content that supports it, which usually means AC3 or DTS multi-channel video.  I accept that I can't control volume in XBMC when watching movies.  Because i use an Amulet that is not really an issue, but if I were using an open microphone I would probably wire up some kind of pause / enable VC command on my remote.

In order to keep my TTS working at all times, I have decided to use my TV speakers for TTS via the HDMI output, but that does not really apply to your current problems I guess.

If volume control works at all with XBMC (i.e. using plus/minus on keyboard) then VC should be able to use SoftMute/Unmute, so you can confine your testing to just trying to control XBMC volume normally.  If volume control works in XBMC, but softmute doesn't work then you have some other issue with your setup.

[ddl]

ok,

I'll start to troubleshoot a little more tonight and you're probably right.  I might be confused about the digital pass through stuff.  We'll post more tonight.  For starters where do I learn more about digital pass through.  More specifically, how to enable/disable?

Thanks again for your input.

[nime5ter]

http://wiki.xbmc.org/index.php?title=Audio_settings

... and the other pages it links to.

[jitterjames]

Nime5ter beat me to it, and was much nicer. 

I was going to say try a web search for:

voxcommando xbmc digital pass-through

and

xbmc digital pass-through

The top hits in both cases will be of interest to you.