no audio with AAC since 9.0 / audio settings verification

AndrewZ · February 12, 2019 at 2:15 PM

Hello everyone

I've updated to 9.0 recently and noticed that I have no audio with AAC. After some tweaking I've managed to get the sound, but I'm not sure I have the most optimal settings.

Here is what I have:

WeTek Hub with only HDMI output.

Yamaha RX-V757 [old] receiver without HDMI but with SPDIF.

Relevant AVR capabilities are here

- Dolby Digital/Dolby Digital EX decoder

- DTS/DTS-ES Matrix 6.1, Discrete 6.1, DTS Neo:6, DTS 96/24 decoder

- Dolby Pro Logic/Dolby Pro Logic II/Dolby Pro Logic IIx decoder

In order to convert the interfaces between the WeTek and AVR an external splitter/converter is used - HDMI in / HDMI out + SPDIF out.

Converter spec

HDMI Converter Audio Splitter HDMI to HDMI SPDIF

SPDIF output : support 5.1CH audio including Dolby Digital 5.1CH and DTS 5.1CH(it does NOT support Dolby Digital Plus and PCM 5.1CH and beyond)

Converter has a mode switch with 3 options:

Pass - the SPDIF output audio format depends on the TV EDID.

2.0CH - the SPDIF output audio format is LPCM 2CH /my current setting/

5.1CH - the SPDIF output audio format is 5.1CH (the source audio must be 5.1CH)

Finally, my audio settings in LE:

Audio output device: the only HDMI interface

Number of channels: 3 (my rear speakers are not currently connected, no sound with AAC if set to 2)

Stereo upmix: enabled (otherwise no sound with AAC)

Allow Passthrough: enabled

Passthrough output device: the only HDMI interface

Dolby Digital (AC3) capable receiver: enabled

DTS capable receiver: enabled

Please comment and/or advise.

orudge · March 16, 2019 at 5:16 PM

I’ve been having the same issue with LibreELEC 9.0.0 on an ODROID C2 connected to a Sony HT-XT1 sound base. Had no worries with 8.x at all playing anything really (DD, DTS, DTS-HD, TrueHD, AAC, MP3), using HDMI passthrough for all supported formats. AAC is now only playing when I change output to 5.1 and enable stereo upmix, and the sound output will typically become “corrupted” (deep and slow) after playing a video. Passthrough stuff is still fine though. If anyone has any ideas I’d appreciate them!

jamm · March 16, 2019 at 6:43 PM

@orudge

I have had the same issues on a Wetek Hub with 9.0.0 and 9.0.1.

1) no audio with AAC 2.0 unless stereo upmix is turned on. AAC 5.1 did work without stereo upmix.

2) “corrupted” audio (deep and slow) after playing a video on AAC audio. Pass through is still fine.

I am starting to get the feeling that issues on the Amlogic devices are not a priority for Libreelec. I just learned of Coreelec and that they focus on the Amlogic devices. I can confirm that these audio issues are not present with the Wetek Hub runnung Coreelec 9.0.1 . However I do find an issue with Coreelec. Maybe I can't have my cake and eat it too?

jacksure · March 24, 2019 at 4:12 AM

Same here. Updated from 8 to 9.0.1 on odroid c2 hardware and now most of

AAC stuff is broken. One movie with AAC 2.0 started working with stereo upmix switch, some other 2.0 did not. 5.1 is wonky too. Half speed audio or constant dropouts. This makes libreelec mostly unusable on this hardware as there were other problems with 8 version

dersch81 · March 28, 2019 at 7:33 PM

Same here with odroid c2 on LE 9. With LE8 i do not had any problems passing all the sound codes to my decoder. But now it is just unusable. I'mrunning Kodi V18 now temporarly on FireTV but looking forward to some fix.

AndrewZ · March 29, 2019 at 11:06 AM

I switched to CoreELEC and have no problems since that.

jamm · March 29, 2019 at 12:35 PM

@AndrewZ I agree. Coreelec seems rock solid for me on the Wetek Hub. My only complaint is a 1/2 second delay for video to resume after skipping forward or backward. I think it may have to do with how they fixed resync issues with HEVC.

novalis · March 30, 2019 at 8:40 AM

DD+ also not working.

Is there anyone working on those issues? Is the crew aware of those issues?

dersch81 · April 14, 2019 at 10:48 AM

I'm running now CoreELEC with my Odroid C2. Didn't know that fork until yesterday. It works perfectly now with all Sound Codecs and so on. Armlogic devices should move to CoreELEC because the focus of that fork is for those devices.

icefox · April 14, 2019 at 3:52 PM

Quote from jacksure

Same here. Updated from 8 to 9.0.1 on odroid c2 hardware and now most of

AAC stuff is broken. One movie with AAC 2.0 started working with stereo upmix switch, some other 2.0 did not. 5.1 is wonky too. Half speed audio or constant dropouts. This makes libreelec mostly unusable on this hardware as there were other problems with 8 version

Same here. Updated from 8 to 9.0.1 on Odroid C2. AC3 stereo no sound unless upmixed. This is the case either passthrough or locally decoded. Very disappointing this serious issue is not fixed after so many months and user reports. The upside to 9.0 is that hardware h265 decoding (why I got the C2 in the first place) actually works. Before the system would crash after a few minutes.

Quote from dersch81

I'm running now CoreELEC with my Odroid C2. Didn't know that fork until yesterday. It works perfectly now with all Sound Codecs and so on. Armlogic devices should move to CoreELEC because the focus of that fork is for those devices.

Thanks. I've enjoyed LE but maybe key devs have moved on to this branch, like how they moved from openelev to LE. Will give it a try if further problems persist.

OtheA · April 16, 2019 at 3:20 AM

Same here. Updated to 9.0 and any stereo AAC that runs at 48kHz is silent. 44.1kHz is fine.

**chewitt** · April 16, 2019 at 2:27 PM Official Post

Quote from icefox

I've enjoyed LE but maybe key devs have moved on to this branch, like how they moved from openelev to LE.

Incorrect. It's not at all like the OE move where the entire team (literally everyone minus one) moved on to leave the single problem developer to work by themselves. Only the two developers that proved themselves unable to work to the standards set by the rest of the team moved on. The rest of the team are intact and the Amlogic mainline kernel change is our focus. The key developers and active contributors towards the future of Amlogic working on that are all here and things in the mainline camp are moving along quite nicely. There are event test images available in these forums.

icefox · April 20, 2019 at 3:49 AM

Quote from chewitt

Incorrect. It's not at all like the OE move where the entire team (literally everyone minus one) moved on to leave the single problem developer to work by themselves. Only the two developers that proved themselves unable to work to the standards set by the rest of the team moved on. The rest of the team are intact and the Amlogic mainline kernel change is our focus. The key developers and active contributors towards the future of Amlogic working on that are all here and things in the mainline camp are moving along quite nicely. There are event test images available in these forums.

Thanks for clarifying. Ok, I'll stick with LE and hope the next updates fix this serious issue. (Stereo AC3 is in more than half of all videos floating on the internet.) Thank you for the work on LE!

jamm · April 27, 2019 at 7:45 PM

@chewitt Are the test images that you refer to the ones in the LibreELEC 9.0.1 builds for S905 (semi official) thread or somewhere else?

I haven't seen any of the team acknowledge these audio issues on the Wetek Hub or Odroid C2. They seem quite easy to reproduce.

**chewitt** · April 28, 2019 at 5:22 AM Official Post

None of the LE staff have touched the 3.14 kernel in some time. It's a bit like a set of sports kit that you left in a bag three months ago and if you open the bag it really stinks, so it's easiest to just leave the bag closed. Our development focus has been on the mainline kernel for some time now and once you start moving downhill off the mountain of stupid stuff the legacy kernel requires, choosing to stumble uphill again just doesn't happen.

Test LibreELEC images with KODI-18 for S9xxx has balbes150 images which are largely based on my amlogic branch in GitHub which will get merged into our main repo once Linux 5.1 drops. The mainline kernel has some feature gaps but for most use is stable and quite usable.