Radeon HDMI question

Radeon HDMI question

[Boszormenyi Zoltan]

Hi,

I experience a strange problem, I don't know whether
it's a feature or a bug, and if it's a bug, where.

I have a Radeon HD6570. A monitor via DVI and an LCD TV
via HDMI are connected. Fedora 18/x86_64 is installed on
the computer. (Previously it was F17, F16 and F14.)

When playing videos via Xine, all videos with 5.1 sound
works nicely via the HDMI, the sound output is on the TV.
However, when only stereo or mono sound is present in
the video, the sound doesn't go out to the TV.

I have an internal soundcard and speakers are connected.
Pulseaudio on modern Linuxen has the feature to switch the
audio output device on the fly and per-application, so I can
switch between the outputs.

Is is possible to make mono and stereo audio work via HDMI?

Thanks in advance,
Zoltán Böszörményi

Re: Radeon HDMI question

[Christian König]

Am 17.01.2013 20:35, schrieb Boszormenyi Zoltan:
> Hi,
>
> I experience a strange problem, I don't know whether
> it's a feature or a bug, and if it's a bug, where.
>
> I have a Radeon HD6570. A monitor via DVI and an LCD TV
> via HDMI are connected. Fedora 18/x86_64 is installed on
> the computer. (Previously it was F17, F16 and F14.)
>
> When playing videos via Xine, all videos with 5.1 sound
> works nicely via the HDMI, the sound output is on the TV.
> However, when only stereo or mono sound is present in
> the video, the sound doesn't go out to the TV.
>
> I have an internal soundcard and speakers are connected.
> Pulseaudio on modern Linuxen has the feature to switch the
> audio output device on the fly and per-application, so I can
> switch between the outputs.
>
> Is is possible to make mono and stereo audio work via HDMI?

Hi Zoltán,

that just sounds like a mis configured Xine to me. Xine can be 
configured to use different outputs for Mono/Stero and 5.1 sounds.

You can also configure ALSA to route the audio differently depending on 
the number of channels, but that isn't the default and if you configured 
it like this you probably would remember it :)

I can't really see a way how this can be a hardware problem either, 
cause 5.1 audio pass through is handled mostly the same as Stereo.

I suggest that you check your Xine configuration, you should find 
multiple setting for selection the output device (Mono/Stereo/5.1/7.1 
etc...) make sure that they all point to the correct hardware device.

Regards,
Christian.

>
> Thanks in advance,
> Zoltán Böszörményi
>
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>

Re: Radeon HDMI question

[Boszormenyi Zoltan]

Hi,

2013-01-18 13:04 keltezéssel, Christian König írta:
> Am 17.01.2013 20:35, schrieb Boszormenyi Zoltan:
>> Hi,
>>
>> I experience a strange problem, I don't know whether
>> it's a feature or a bug, and if it's a bug, where.
>>
>> I have a Radeon HD6570. A monitor via DVI and an LCD TV
>> via HDMI are connected. Fedora 18/x86_64 is installed on
>> the computer. (Previously it was F17, F16 and F14.)
>>
>> When playing videos via Xine, all videos with 5.1 sound
>> works nicely via the HDMI, the sound output is on the TV.
>> However, when only stereo or mono sound is present in
>> the video, the sound doesn't go out to the TV.
>>
>> I have an internal soundcard and speakers are connected.
>> Pulseaudio on modern Linuxen has the feature to switch the
>> audio output device on the fly and per-application, so I can
>> switch between the outputs.
>>
>> Is is possible to make mono and stereo audio work via HDMI?
>
> Hi Zoltán,
>
> that just sounds like a mis configured Xine to me. Xine can be configured to use 
> different outputs for Mono/Stero and 5.1 sounds.
>
> You can also configure ALSA to route the audio differently depending on the number of 
> channels, but that isn't the default and if you configured it like this you probably 
> would remember it :)

I am sure I would remember it. :)

> I can't really see a way how this can be a hardware problem either, cause 5.1 audio pass 
> through is handled mostly the same as Stereo.
>
> I suggest that you check your Xine configuration, you should find multiple setting for 
> selection the output device (Mono/Stereo/5.1/7.1 etc...) make sure that they all point 
> to the correct hardware device.
>
> Regards,
> Christian.

OK, a new problem now with 5.1 sound, it can be reproduced.

I still have the same setup as described above.
I started watching a video. Initially, HDMI audio just works nicely.
I had to do something else so I paused Xine.
During this time, X went to DPMS blanking.
The TV switches itself off  to save power if it sees no input.
So, after waking up the monitor from DPMS and turning on the
TV again, I pressed play on the video. It continues playing but
without the sound.

It seems to be the same with Linux 3.8.1 and earlier kernels.

There is nothing in dmesg, only:

ALSA sound/pci/hda/hda_eld.c:337 HDMI: ELD buf size is 0, force 128
ALSA sound/pci/hda/hda_eld.c:356 HDMI: invalid ELD data byte 0

Thanks in advance,
Zoltán Böszörményi

Re: Radeon HDMI question

[Christian König]

Hi,

Am 05.03.2013 19:26, schrieb Boszormenyi Zoltan:
> OK, a new problem now with 5.1 sound, it can be reproduced.
>
> I still have the same setup as described above.
> I started watching a video. Initially, HDMI audio just works nicely.
> I had to do something else so I paused Xine.
> During this time, X went to DPMS blanking.
> The TV switches itself off  to save power if it sees no input.
> So, after waking up the monitor from DPMS and turning on the
> TV again, I pressed play on the video. It continues playing but
> without the sound.
>
> It seems to be the same with Linux 3.8.1 and earlier kernels.

Does that also happen with just plain stereo playback? If yes then this 
is a bug with restoring the correct audio settings after DPMS blanking.

If not (and that's what I think is more likely) than that's because DPMS 
blanking causes a desync between xine and your TV. Unfortunately there 
isn't much we can do about it (maybe expect disabling DPMS all 
together), Cause from the hardware point of view it's just not possible 
to tell the audio codec to stop playback because the display isn't 
turned on any more.

Does it work when you close xine and restart it? If yes than it might be 
worth a try to tell xine to close and reopen the audio device on 
pause/restart of playback.

>
> There is nothing in dmesg, only:
>
> ALSA sound/pci/hda/hda_eld.c:337 HDMI: ELD buf size is 0, force 128
> ALSA sound/pci/hda/hda_eld.c:356 HDMI: invalid ELD data byte 0

That's unrelated, the alsa driver just assumes the standard ELD 
informations for the HDMI audio codec, but AMD hardware is actually not 
using it.

The real solution to your problem is to finally implement 8 channel PCM 
audio, instead of just using this ugly 5.1 pass through workaround. But 
so far nobody had time to do so.

Christian.

Re: Radeon HDMI question

[Boszormenyi Zoltan]

Hi,

2013-03-06 10:50 keltezéssel, Christian König írta:
> Hi,
>
> Am 05.03.2013 19:26, schrieb Boszormenyi Zoltan:
>> OK, a new problem now with 5.1 sound, it can be reproduced.
>>
>> I still have the same setup as described above.
>> I started watching a video. Initially, HDMI audio just works nicely.
>> I had to do something else so I paused Xine.
>> During this time, X went to DPMS blanking.
>> The TV switches itself off  to save power if it sees no input.
>> So, after waking up the monitor from DPMS and turning on the
>> TV again, I pressed play on the video. It continues playing but
>> without the sound.
>>
>> It seems to be the same with Linux 3.8.1 and earlier kernels.
>
> Does that also happen with just plain stereo playback? If yes then this is a bug with 
> restoring the correct audio settings after DPMS blanking.

I will try to test it later, also with mplayer.

>
> If not (and that's what I think is more likely) than that's because DPMS blanking causes 
> a desync between xine and your TV. Unfortunately there isn't much we can do about it 
> (maybe expect disabling DPMS all together), Cause from the hardware point of view it's 
> just not possible to tell the audio codec to stop playback because the display isn't 
> turned on any more.
>
> Does it work when you close xine and restart it? If yes than it might be worth a try to 
> tell xine to close and reopen the audio device on pause/restart of playback.

Unfortunately, after HDMI audio goes away, restarting Xine doesn't help at all.

The audio driver is pulseaudio in Xine, so I can switch between the built-in
audio with stereo speakers and the HDMI output and the speakers produce
the expected sounds.

Also, the vumeter in pavucontrol shows that sound is generated from Xine,
no matter which hardware is selected and even when HDMI is selected
but there is no sound on the TV after it went out.

The sound only comes back when I reboot the computer.

>
>>
>> There is nothing in dmesg, only:
>>
>> ALSA sound/pci/hda/hda_eld.c:337 HDMI: ELD buf size is 0, force 128
>> ALSA sound/pci/hda/hda_eld.c:356 HDMI: invalid ELD data byte 0
>
> That's unrelated, the alsa driver just assumes the standard ELD informations for the 
> HDMI audio codec, but AMD hardware is actually not using it.
>
> The real solution to your problem is to finally implement 8 channel PCM audio, instead 
> of just using this ugly 5.1 pass through workaround. But so far nobody had time to do so.

Thanks for the information.

Best regards,
Zoltán Böszörményi