Call for testers: HDMI pass-through

[jyavenard]

# Card and GPU type (you find this information for example in the third line of qvdpautest output)
nVidia GT220: nVidia Corporation GT216 [GeForce GT 220] rev 162
# Driver version: 260.19.21
# Kernel (and ALSA) version: 2.6.32, alsa from git as of today, with patch from Anssi (otherwise can't play anything < 5.1)
# Receiver
Primare SP32 with HD upgrade

Result. It takes about 3s for the processor to get a lock, so I can't hear much as the sample are too short.
However, with DTS-HD MA sample, the processor shows DTS-HD Master Audio.
TrueHD works fine and plays.

Also tested with nvidia drivers 195.36.24 and same thing. Which I'm glad as 260.xx as given me terrible results so far vdpau-wise
I concatenated all the files several times together to make bigger ones.
DTS-HD MA, the processor shows that it is getting that codec, but I can't hear anythin
TrueHD works fine...

[Anssi]

Originally Posted by jyavenard

# Kernel (and ALSA) version: 2.6.32, alsa from git as of today, with patch from Anssi (otherwise can't play anything < 5.1)

For the record, this was a different issue (http://mailman.alsa-project.org/pipe...er/034581.html), i.e. not the cause of the problems experienced by some people in this thread. The patch is going to 2.6.36 stable series.

Also, jyavenard has codec id 0x10de000a, which is again one that was not listed as supported by Stephen Warren earlier in this thread. Thus far all the issues have been on apparently "unsupported" codecs or 0x000b.

[jyavenard]

Originally Posted by Anssi

Also, jyavenard has codec id 0x10de000a, which is again one that was not listed as supported by Stephen Warren earlier in this thread .

As a side-note, what are the model officially supported? (something in user-term, GT4xx etc?)

I waiting several months to upgrade the videos card, and got two GT220 specifically for that purpose. But now if they won't work, it's a bit of a downer

[Phlogi]

I followed the steps but can't get any sound out of hdmi. Here are my specs:

• [card: (II) NVIDIA(0): NVIDIA GPU ION (GT218) at PCI:1:0:0 (GPU-0)
• NVIDIA Driver Version: 260.19.26
• kernel: 2.6.36-ARCH
• alsa: 1.0.23
• Onkyo TX-SR508 receiver using hdmi 1.4 cable

No test file is working. Any help is appreciated...

[Eicar]

Sorry to bother you guys here, but I was wondering if my trusted
ASROCK ION 330HT-BD will ever be able to do HDMI pass-through.
I can't find any information regarding if it's HDMI 1.3a capable or not.
Does any of you guys know? 1.3a is required for bitstreaming right?

-Eicar

[jyavenard]

Originally Posted by Eicar

Sorry to bother you guys here, but I was wondering if my trusted
ASROCK ION 330HT-BD will ever be able to do HDMI pass-through.
I can't find any information regarding if it's HDMI 1.3a capable or not.
Does any of you guys know? 1.3a is required for bitstreaming right?

-Eicar

AFAIK, ION (9400M) do not support HD passthrough

[cehoyos]

Originally Posted by jyavenard

As a side-note, what are the model officially supported? (something in user-term, GT4xx etc?)

I waiting several months to upgrade the videos card, and got two GT220 specifically for that purpose. But now if they won't work, it's a bit of a downer

I had the impression you tested it successfully (which is much better than any "official support" imo).

Carl Eugen

[cehoyos]

Originally Posted by Phlogi

I followed the steps but can't get any sound out of hdmi.

Do you mean HDMI sound never works for you or that the test files do not work? (Does 8-channel pcm work?)

Carl Eugen

[cehoyos]

Originally Posted by jyavenard

Result. It takes about 3s for the processor to get a lock, so I can't hear much as the sample are too short.

With latest svn, you can use any TrueHD (does not work - yet - with DTS-HD) files as input to produce your own sample:
ffmpeg -i yourTrueHDsample -acodec copy out.spdif

Carl Eugen

[jyavenard]

Originally Posted by cehoyos

I had the impression you tested it successfully (which is much better than any "official support" imo).

Yes, TrueHD works (not DTS-HD MA though, which is puzzling as it's carried over hdmi in an identical fashion)..

By not official, my concern is more related to what nvidia will do in the future with it.
My understanding for HD passthrough to work is the requirement for the whole connection chain to be encrypted. Provided the windows driver don't allow the GT2xx to work, does it somehow means that nvidia made a mistake of allowing something that isn't supposed to be allowed and remove it in the future? (hopefully, I'm just paranoid)

Thanks to Anssi I added support in mythtv for HD passthrough last night, still having some things to tweak around but it's mostly there...
Can also extract the audio stream to a file..

[jyavenard]

Originally Posted by cehoyos

Do you mean HDMI sound never works for you or that the test files do not work? (Does 8-channel pcm work?)

I was reading on the alsa development list, and from the reports this ion chipset doesn't have the audio channels ordered properly, hardware bug.

Would be interesting to see if you re-order the channels before feeding it to alsa would be sufficient to get HD passthrough working on these GPU.

[Anssi]

Originally Posted by jyavenard

AFAIK, ION (9400M) do not support HD passthrough

Yep, the 1st generation IONs (including ASROCK ION 330HT-BD) don't support it.

Originally Posted by jyavenard

My understanding for HD passthrough to work is the requirement for the whole connection chain to be encrypted.

I'm not aware of such a requirement.

Originally Posted by jyavenard

I was reading on the alsa development list, and from the reports this ion chipset doesn't have the audio channels ordered properly, hardware bug.

Only the first-gen ION chips have that issue.

Phlogi's ION is a 2nd generation one, so it doesn't have the channel ordering issue and HD passthrough has indeed a chance of working.

Originally Posted by jyavenard

Would be interesting to see if you re-order the channels before feeding it to alsa would be sufficient to get HD passthrough working on these GPU.

That wouldn't be enough on 1st gen IONs, as one needs to enable the HBR mode as well, and that is not implemented in ALSA for that chipset and very likely to not be supported by the hardware either.