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Topic: 7.1 audio playback (Read 1548 times) previous topic - next topic
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7.1 audio playback

I've been struggling with it for several days now and any help will be appreciated. Here's the brief description :
I'm working on playing 7.1 audio file and couldn't get the side speakers to play. It shows on VU Meter but the sound doesn't get routed properly to the channels.
My setup is -
Windows 7 Enterprise
Dell PC with 2GB RAM
Creative X-Fi ExtremeMusic card with 7.1 audio support
Harman Kardon AVR 525 with 7.1 input.

I suspected my sound file and downloaded a sample 7.1 audio file from internet. This again shows sounds being routed to FCL and FCR channels but a muffled sound seems to come from the FRONT speakers instead. I've tried playing it directly (Output - DS : Speakers (Creative SB x_Fi), using WASAPI 3.1 and ASIO 2.1.2.

However When I play the same files using Windows Media Player, I'm able to hear the sound properly from the Side Speakers!

7.1 audio playback

Reply #1 –
is any dsp active in dsp manager?
 

7.1 audio playback

Reply #2 –
It may be caused by the file not having a channel configuration mask. The hard coded defaults for 7 and 8 channels with no mask are:

audio_chunk::channel_front_left | audio_chunk::channel_front_right | audio_chunk::channel_back_left | audio_chunk::channel_back_right | audio_chunk::channel_lfe | audio_chunk::channel_front_center_right | audio_chunk::channel_front_center_left

and

audio_chunk::channel_front_left | audio_chunk::channel_front_right | audio_chunk::channel_back_left | audio_chunk::channel_back_right | audio_chunk::channel_front_center | audio_chunk::channel_lfe | audio_chunk::channel_front_center_right | audio_chunk::channel_front_center_left

Those last two flags should be channel_side_left and channel_side_right for those files, I guess. This sort of change affects the SDK, and would also affect any arbitrary input component which sets an audio_chunk channel count without setting the channel mask itself.

Needs further testing to see how various software treats 7 and 8 channel WAV files which are WAVEFORMATEX instead of WAVEFORMATEXTENSIBLE.

7.1 audio playback

Reply #3 –
Quote from: kode54 on
It may be caused by the file not having a channel configuration mask. The hard coded defaults for 7 and 8 channels with no mask are:

audio_chunk::channel_front_left | audio_chunk::channel_front_right | audio_chunk::channel_back_left | audio_chunk::channel_back_right | audio_chunk::channel_lfe | ..................................................................................
Needs further testing to see how various software treats 7 and 8 channel WAV files which are WAVEFORMATEX instead of WAVEFORMATEXTENSIBLE.

You may be right. I downloaded a different file today and it played fine. The only difference this time is that channel 7 and channel 8 are showing up as SL and SR instead of FCL and FCR.

However, I ran the same test on my HTPC setup and both new 7.1 audio file (with SL and SR) and old 7.1 audio file (with FCL and FCR) play correctly in right speakers.
The setup is slightly different
Windows 8 Enterprise
Home made HTPC
Radeon 6450 with HDMI out
Harman Kardon AVR 3600 with 7.1 audio input on HDMI input.

I think the material difference between the two setups is
Windows 8 vs Windows 7
HDMI out vs Analog out
I'll run more tests and see what I find. I'll update the post.