5.1 out of Intel Display Audio?

[clemon79]

I have a freshly-built WMC mini-box running into an Xbox One in my entertainment center. As such I am using HDMI and since I'm using the HD4000 graphics, I'm also using Intel Display Audio for the sound.

The problem: when I go into Sound in Control Panel and try to configure the sound adapter, it won't let me pick anything but Stereo for the output; there is no option for 5.1 sound, which I would like to pass along to the One, and then have the One pass along to my stereo.

I've seen this issue come up in other threads, and if it's just a matter of waiting until the One supports it properly, that's fine (I know I am waiting on it to support Dolby Digital output), but the question I can't seem to get a concrete answer to: does Intel Display Audio actually support 5.1 audio at all? (Specifically Dolby Digital 5.1 audio?) Is there a way to force the setting, if so? It would be good to know concretely if the scenario I am trying to achieve is even possible.

Thanks much!

-- Chris

[milli260876]

Bitstreaming?? Use lav filters and pass all the sound thru...

[clemon79]

I have no idea what you just said.

[richard1980]

it won't let me pick anything but Stereo for the output

That is because HDMI audio support is automatically negotiated. You can't change it.

Bitstreaming?? Use lav filters and pass all the sound thru...

1. The HDMI source can only output audio formats that are supported by the receiving device, and the receiving device in this case (the Xbox One) does not support Dolby Digital input.
2. Assuming the receiving device supports Dolby Digital, there are only two things that need to be done to enable bistreaming:
   1. Enable exclusive mode in the audio hardware (it is enabled by default).
   2. Disable automatic volume normalization in WMC (it is disabled by default).

Changing codecs is not the right answer to bitstreaming problems.

[clemon79]

it won't let me pick anything but Stereo for the output

That is because HDMI audio support is automatically negotiated. You can't change it.

The HDMI source can only output audio formats that are supported by the receiving device, and the receiving device in this case (the Xbox One) does not support Dolby Digital input.

Okay, but there *is* a Digital Surround beta option. However, when I turn that on, it behaves very much like the center channel isn't coming through; I was using it during the hockey game today and I could not hear the broadcasters.

I don't know a lot about that option, but would it be reasonable to assume that there would be *some* way to set the WMC machine to shoot out 5.1 at that point? I was still getting Stereo-only when I had that activated and was checking.

Assuming the receiving device supports Dolby Digital, there are only two things that need to be done to enable bistreaming:

Which it doesn't yet, I understand that, but I also understand that it should soon. But wouldn't it be possible to send uncompressed 5.1 through?

Enable exclusive mode in the audio hardware (it is enabled by default).

Where would I find this setting?

Changing codecs is not the right answer to bitstreaming problems.

Oh good. Something about that (again, what little I understood) didn't sound right.

[richard1980]

Wow, great job with the quoting.

Okay, but there *is* a Digital Surround beta option.

The surround sound beta option doesn't allow the Xbox One to receive Dolby Digital. It simply allows the the 2-channel input to be matrixed to multi-channel audio (it's the same concept as Dolby ProLogic II). Additionally, since it's still in beta, you should expect it to have problems.

But wouldn't it be possible to send uncompressed 5.1 through?

Only if the Xbox One tells the PC that it supports 6-channel PCM. If it's only advertising a maximum of 2 channels of audio, then that's all you can send to it.

[clemon79]

Wow, great job with the quoting.

Wow, I suck. Usually I am much better than that.

The surround sound beta option doesn't allow the Xbox One to receive Dolby Digital. It simply allows the the 2-channel input to be matrixed to multi-channel audio (it's the same concept as Dolby ProLogic II). Additionally, since it's still in beta, you should expect it to have problems.

Oh, of course I do. Okay, so it sounds like I'm pretty much out of luck until the updates for the One ship that support full-blown surround, then? (If I want to do all of this through HDMI, of course. If I wanted to run optical audio over to my stereo and bypass the One entirely, I probably could make it happen, but holy convoluted setup, Batman.)

I'm fine with that if that's the case; it's more an issue for me of not wanting to miss a solution if one does happen to exist. Honestly when I set this up it didn't even occur to me that there were going to be any problems of this sort; I assumed that 5.1 would just be sent through everything, in my naivete.

[richard1980]

If I wanted to run optical audio over to my stereo and bypass the One entirely, I probably could make it happen, but holy convoluted setup, Batman.)

Unfortunately that's going to be the only solution that works, at least for now. Unless of course you just circumvent the Xbox One entirely.

[clemon79]

Unfortunately that's going to be the only solution that works, at least for now. Unless of course you just circumvent the Xbox One entirely.

Yeah, I enjoy the voice control too much.

Really, my world isn't gonna come to a screeching halt if I don't have surround NOW RIGHT NOW. I can wait a little while for the One update that makes surround a little more robust, and if I really need to circumvent things, I can pick up a TOSlink-to-digital coaxial adapter (I didn't realize they were relatively cheap now; I assumed they were a $50 part) and run things to the stereo directly with not too much hassle. (My stereo has two TOSlink and one coax for digital inputs; currently I'm taking TOSlink out of my TV and running that to the stereo to cover the One and my BluRay player, which is fine as long as they can send Dolby Digital...which the One can't do yet. )

[VistaVick]

Well, even with the latest update, I still can not get my htpc's audio to passthrough the xbox and come out to my receiver in dolby digital, dts, or any form of 5.1 sound. The receiver says dts, but dialog is still playing in all 3 front speakers.

The issue still seems to be in the windows sound control panel, under the device- xbox one- intel display audio......it will not let you select more than 2 speakers.

So, I will have to continue on using an optical cable out from my htpc to the audio receiver, and switch inputs when playing sound from the xbox one (not coming from the htpc). Which sort of defeats the purpose of an all in one device.

[clemon79]

That's not necessarily despositive, though I am sure you have tested the speakers in WMC. Mine only lets me pick two speakers as well, but it's clearly passing 5.1, as WMC is testing discrete sound in each speaker, and the Xbox is passing Dolby Digital with the update. (I have HDMI Audio set to "Bitstream" and then Bitstream Format is set to Dolby Digital. Oh, and the Beta Surround Sound option in TV Troubleshooting Audio is on.)

[VistaVick]

I have may have spoken too soon.

I now can get audio played through windows media center to use 5.1 channels properly, if I select 5.1 uncompressed in xbox one settings.....not dts or dolby digital bit stream. I could not before.

Funny thing is playing a surround sound test file in windows media player works properly with bit stream enabled, but not for live tv from windows media center. I have auto volume disabled. And when I try the windows media center audio test with dts bit stream enabled, it does use all the channels. Yet movies and shows with dolby do not.

It's an improvement anyway, though it would be nice to be able to bit stream.

[VistaVick]

Also, bit-streaming works fine with live tv if you use optical audio out from the xbox one...........it's really strange bit-streaming with hdmi does not.

[Gustovier]

Also, bit-streaming works fine with live tv if you use optical audio out from the xbox one...........it's really strange bit-streaming with hdmi does not.

Wait a sec. What type of audio is going to the xbox one from your PC where it works (Dolby digital, DTS, etc) that you think you are getting 5.1 sound back out from the xbox one?

Since the your PC (and mine as well) will only let you select 2 channels audio in control panel then you must only be passing back stereo to the xbox one. Which means the xbox one is doing some matrixing algorithm to convert that stereo to 5.1. Like Dolby pro logic. So it can't be true 5.1 you are really sourcing in and getting out from your 5.1 content on your PC.

This is what I believe to be happening...

[richard1980]

I thought I covered that issue in post #6, but perhaps I was not very clear. To clarify, the Xbox One does not support Dolby Digital or DTS passthrough. It only supports 2-channel audio input. When the Xbox One is configured to output Dolby Digital or DTS, it matrixes the 2-channel audio input to 6 channels, then sends the 6 audio channels through a Dolby Digital or DTS encoder.

[Gustovier]

I thought I covered that issue in post #6, but perhaps I was not very clear. To clarify, the Xbox One does not support Dolby Digital or DTS passthrough. It only supports 2-channel audio input. When the Xbox One is configured to output Dolby Digital or DTS, it matrixes the 2-channel audio input to 6 channels, then sends the 6 audio channels through a Dolby Digital or DTS encoder.

That's not what vistavix is saying. I'm wondering now if you bitstream DD 5.1 over hdmi will it work. Bout to try that out now

[Gustovier]

I thought I covered that issue in post #6, but perhaps I was not very clear. To clarify, the Xbox One does not support Dolby Digital or DTS passthrough. It only supports 2-channel audio input. When the Xbox One is configured to output Dolby Digital or DTS, it matrixes the 2-channel audio input to 6 channels, then sends the 6 audio channels through a Dolby Digital or DTS encoder.

That's not what vistavix is saying. I'm wondering now if you bitstream DD 5.1 over hdmi will it work. Bout to try that out now

Ok so that worked. The key is bit streaming (only tried Dolby 5.1 not DTS yet) and not sending over already decoded lpcm audio streams. Otherwise the PC will just send over 2 channels. Looking at the xbox one edid I believe says that it can only do 2 channel lpcm but 5.1 Dolby digital(aka ac3).

[Gustovier]

I thought I covered that issue in post #6, but perhaps I was not very clear. To clarify, the Xbox One does not support Dolby Digital or DTS passthrough. It only supports 2-channel audio input. When the Xbox One is configured to output Dolby Digital or DTS, it matrixes the 2-channel audio input to 6 channels, then sends the 6 audio channels through a Dolby Digital or DTS encoder.

That's not what vistavix is saying. I'm wondering now if you bitstream DD 5.1 over hdmi will it work. Bout to try that out now

Ok so that worked. The key is bit streaming (only tried Dolby 5.1 not DTS yet) and not sending over already decoded lpcm audio streams. Otherwise the PC will just send over 2 channels. Looking at the xbox one edid I believe says that it can only do 2 channel lpcm but 5.1 Dolby digital(aka ac3).

Ok I tried bit streaming DTS that does not work. Only Dolby digital. So the solution is to use something like ffdshow to ALWAYS output Dolby digital 5.1 no mater what the source audio is. You can set ffdshow to just pass along Dolby digital if it's in source and to do real time conversion of DTS to Dolby digital if the source is DTS. I don't have a 7.1 setup but I'm pretty sure you are gonna be out of luck there due to multiple reasons. With this approach I don't believe the xbox is doing any 5.1 -> 2ch -> 5.1. I think it's keeping the 5.1 dolbydigital bitstream intact and just decoding it.

[usafballer]

Ok I tried bit streaming DTS that does not work. Only Dolby digital. So the solution is to use something like ffdshow to ALWAYS output Dolby digital 5.1 no mater what the source audio is. You can set ffdshow to just pass along Dolby digital if it's in source and to do real time conversion of DTS to Dolby digital if the source is DTS. I don't have a 7.1 setup but I'm pretty sure you are gonna be out of luck there due to multiple reasons. With this approach I don't believe the xbox is doing any 5.1 -> 2ch -> 5.1. I think it's keeping the 5.1 dolbydigital bitstream intact and just decoding it.

So my setup is HTPC>>Intel HDMI Audio>>XBOX ONE>>TOSLINK OUTPUT to my Yamaha YSP-1100 Soundbar

So, determining discrete surround sound is hard, but I still want the best 5.1 sound possible. Especially since I like to use Plex a lot, which has a mix of DD and DTS audio for most movies. Soundbar can handle either DD or DTS, but since it's old, I have to use an optical cable.

Gustovier, can you help me get 5.1 properly passed through this chain? I'm not really sure what you are talking about here, but am familiar with ffdshow. I notice in Windows 7 playback devices, that I can only select 2-channel output over HDMI, but it also shows it supports the Dolby-Digital CODEC in that same window. So I can't tell what's going on by default. I'm fine with DD output, even though my ears like DTS better. Oh well, I really like the HTPC through XBOX ONE setup!

Can you write a quick step by step tutorial on what you did here?

Thanks,
Eric

[clemon79]

Me again. I'm resurrecting this thread because I'm back to having problems and hoping I can get help.

So here's the deal: I had 5.1 bitstreaming working through Intel Display Audio through an Xbox One.

Now, I can't seem to make it work. The sound test in WMC isn't recognizing five discrete speakers anymore. But IT WORKED AT ONE TIME, EVEN RECENTLY. And I haven't changed any settings.

The chain is the same as above: HTPC > Intel Display Audio over HDMI > Xbox One > Toslink to stereo bitsteaming DTS > Stereo.

Everything from the X1 forward is working fine. Test tone discs are showing that five-speaker surround is active and working, and I can even switch from DTS to Dolby Digital in the X1 sound settings and the stereo picks it right up and still produces 5.1 sound.

But something happened with the HDMI-to-X1 part of the chain, and I don't know what or how to reset it. That same test tone DVD that I used in the One to make sure that part worked is not producing discrete 5.1 tones out of the DVD player in the HTPC, nor are the test tones in WMC working from all five (dot-one) speakers.

Again: IT WAS WORKING. Didn't need to use any silly filters, it was just working. (And I just now tried upgrading the drivers. Which did upgrade, and the problem persists.)

Surround is ticked in the X1 settings (and is no longer in beta, I see.)

I am incredibly frustrated by this and I am here with my hat in my hand. Please don't make me regret asking the Internet for help.

Thanks in advance.

-- Chris