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[dcpete]

Just spent today working on Native Nick's new ID(NUC).  We have a few questions.  We are able to get HDMI 1 and Analog working simultaneously in different zones and different sources, all good.  But we were unable to get the Toslink to output anything.  We also tried HDMI 2 on the NUC with an audio extractor without luck.  So the question is, can someone confirm that the Toslink output works?  We see no evidence it is working.  Also, does the second HDMI port work?  Pretty confident we had the correct devices selected, but no output on said devices.

Otherwise, It is working well, we are just trying to get the best possible sound.  We are assuming the DAC in the ID is nothing special and would like to go digital direct to B&K multiroom distribution pre-amp, since we believe it must have a better DAC that the ID's analog output.

Thanks, Chris

[bob]

Just spent today working on Native Nick's new ID.  We have a few questions.  We are able to get HDMI 1 and Analog working simultaneously in different zones and different sources, all good.  But we were unable to get the Toslink to output anything.  We also tried HDMI 2 on the NUC with an audio extractor without luck.  So the question is, can someone confirm that the Toslink output works?  We see no evidence it is working.  Also, does the second HDMI port work?  Pretty confident we had the correct devices selected, but no output on said devices.

Otherwise, It is working well, we are just trying to get the best possible sound.  We are assuming the DAC in the ID is nothing special and would like to go digital direct to B&K multiroom distribution pre-amp, since we believe it must have a better DAC that the ID's analog output.

Thanks, Chris

You can't use toslink and analog at the same time since they share the same hardware.

Was your HDMI device on the second port connected at boot time? That is when the HDMI handshaking is setup.

[dcpete]

You can't use toslink and analog at the same time since they share the same hardware.

We weren't attempting to do that.  We desire to use hdmi audio off of hdmi1, which works fine AND toslink from the stereo miniplug/optical connector simultaneously.  We have the correct minijack toslink cable for that.  What I was saying is the analog side of things using a standard stereo miniplug works fine with hdmi 1 as the other source.  But we want to use toslink side of things.

Was your HDMI device on the second port connected at boot time? That is when the HDMI handshaking is setup.

No, we were using hdmi 1 at boot time and hdmi 2 was not connected.  Then the idea since we couldn't get toslink working, was to use hdmi 2 for the second audio path using an audio extractor box we have.  But this is probably the problem I now see is that we didn't have the hdmi passthrough cable attached to anything and there was no handshaking done. 

Can you confirm that both hdmi ports are active on this box at the same time if correct handshaking is initiated?

Thanks, Chris

[Maui Jim]

I think the point on the handshake for HDMI makes sense, and should work.  The bigger question still remains the Toslink, which we never got to work.  As Chris mentioned, analog from that connection works fine and worked the first time we tried it.  However, we tried a variety of things, including re-booting both the Id and the receiver it was going to.  While it’s not clear their should be a handshake issue with Toslink, something that is not obvious to us is clearly amiss.  So, two questions:

1.  What are we missing on getting Toslink operational? Is there a procedural step we somehow missed?

2.  Could it be a hardware issue?  I’d like to assume NUC’s/Id'd go through QC to ensure everything is working, but obviously if we are not missing a procedural step, this has to be considered.

Nick

[bob]

I think the point on the handshake for HDMI makes sense, and should work.  The bigger question still remains the Toslink, which we never got to work.  As Chris mentioned, analog from that connection works fine and worked the first time we tried it.  However, we tried a variety of things, including re-booting both the Id and the receiver it was going to.  While it’s not clear their should be a handshake issue with Toslink, something that is not obvious to us is clearly amiss.  So, two questions:

1.  What are we missing on getting Toslink operational? Is there a procedural step we somehow missed?

2.  Could it be a hardware issue?  I’d like to assume NUC’s/Id'd go through QC to ensure everything is working, but obviously if we are not missing a procedural step, this has to be considered.

Nick

I've not had any trouble with the toslink working though I haven't tried doing that and the HDMI at the same time.
I assume you are using the iec985 audio device selection for the toslink?
If it looks like it's playing but you aren't hearing anything, you can try checking the volume control in MC and look at the mute setting and the internal vs system volume control (system shouldn't give you a volume control since it's digital).
Also, you can check the system mixer (from the Id main menu) to see if the SPD/IF is muted? (MM).

[Maui Jim]

Thanks Bob - will check out your suggestions.  To Chris’ last question, and your comment that you had never tried HDMI and Toslink simultaneously, I’m wondering if we have confirmation that the NUC was designed to enable simultaneous use of the digital ports, and in practice has anyone actually been able to make it work?

Nick

[bob]

Thanks Bob - will check out your suggestions.  To Chris’ last question, and your comment that you had never tried HDMI and Toslink simultaneously, I’m wondering if we have confirmation that the NUC was designed to enable simultaneous use of the digital ports, and in practice has anyone actually been able to make it work?

Nick

MC will easily do multiple zones to different devices without issue, it's only an issue if the hardware itself can only do one or the other (because the hardware itself is shared between both devices).

[dcpete]

Just as an update.  We have hdmi and toslink both working at the same time by linking zones using the toslink dual purpose plug and an hdmi cable.

What is the audio chipset used for analog on the NUC ID and how good is it?

Thanks, Chris

[bob]

Just as an update.  We have hdmi and toslink both working at the same time by linking zones using the toslink dual purpose plug and an hdmi cable.

What is the audio chipset used for analog on the NUC ID and how good is it?

Thanks, Chris

It's a Realtek ALC233.