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[greynolds]

I initially posted about this in the TV subforum as TV recordings seemed to be the only thing affected, but got nothing for responses, so perhaps I'll get some responses here...

I'm experiencing issues with loud white noise pops through my speakers when there are brief signal glitches in video files.  TV recordings seem to be the best source for this as there are occasional glitches in the signal.  I’ve been noticing it here and there for a while now, but it has been really bad while watching hockey games lately - on some recordings, it can happen at least a dozen times over the coarse of a few hours.  These pops are loud enough that I’m concerned they could damage my speakers.  I never get pops like these when I get similar glitches in the TV signal on my other PC running Windows Media Center.  JRiver is configured to send bitstream audio on the WASAPI HDMI output device.  I’m wondering if there might be any settings I can adjust to help minimize this problem.

Over the last few weeks since I initially started looking into the issue, I found that switching the audio device from the WASAPI HDMI device to the DirectSound HDMI device seems to completely eliminated the pops through the speakers.  However, there seem to be a few problems with this solution:

1) Audio mutes briefly when skipping over commercials and takes a second or 2 to return once playback resumes.  With WASAPI, the audio is back virtually immediately when playback resumes.  While the briefly muted audio is less than ideal, it’s much better than the potentially speaker damaging pops.  I can probably live with this issue.

2) I found that video files with Dolby Digital Plus 48kHz 2 channel audio tracks have problems playing.  The video is fine, but the audio is just a non-stop series of pulses.  Switching back to the WASAPI HDMI audio device resolves this, but brings me back to the initial problem.  I haven't found any other audio track types that exhibit this issue so far; 2 channel AAC 48kHz tracks play fine (of course those would be sent out as PCM).  The Windows Sound properties for the HDMI audio device clearly list that Dolby Digital Plus, 48kHz, and up to 8 channels are all supported and the same track plays just fine when the WASAPI device is selected.  Other Dolby Digital tracks with more channels seem to be fine so far; so it seems to be isolated to tracks with 2 channels.

The video card is an nVidia GTX1070 and the system is running Windows 10 Pro.  The nVidia drivers were updated from an older version (about a year old) to the latest version recently in an attempt to resolve this, but that made no change.

Any ideas on how to resolve this would be appreciated.

[greynolds]

The Dolby Digital Plus issue with Direct Sound is not limited to 2 channel; it also happens with 6 channel Dolby Digital Plus tracks.

For now, I’ve implemented a work around using ZoneSwitch to switch to WASAPI for eac3 (Dolby Digital Plus) audio tracks and Direct Sound for everything else.

[Matt]

If WASAPI works, that might be the answer.

You could also try increasing the buffering in Options > Audio > Device settings for the Direct Sound output.

[greynolds]

If WASAPI works, that might be the answer.

You could also try increasing the buffering in Options > Audio > Device settings for the Direct Sound output.

Thanks for the response, Matt.

All audio formats seem to play with WASAPI, the only issue being the pops, so the Zone Switch solution at least gives me a way to play Dolby Digital Plus.

Changing the buffering options for the Direct Sound output didn't seem to change the behavior with Dolby Digital Plus.  I think I tried changing the WASAPI buffering options to resolve the pop issues without any improvement as well.

[Matt]

If the pops are in the TV recording itself, no output will output cleanly.

If the pop is big enough, it's possible the "Volume protection" feature would quiet it.  You'd just have to try.

Trying to figure out the recording to not contain the glitches would be another approach.

[greynolds]

If the pops are in the TV recording itself, no output will output cleanly.

If the pop is big enough, it's possible the "Volume protection" feature would quiet it.  You'd just have to try.

Trying to figure out the recording to not contain the glitches would be another approach.

Well, as I said, the pops don't when the output mode was switched from WASAPI to Direct Sound so the pops are not in the TV recording itself which presumably means they come from transitions of the signal being muted to coming back on or something along those lines.

I've researched the signal and network connection the SiliconDust tuners are getting using SiliconDust's tools and there doesn't appear to be anything wrong there.  No matter what, TV signals are going to have occasional blips; that's pretty much unavoidable.  I was just hoping to be able to have 1 audio configuration that works for everything without the need to mess around with switching zones, but it looks like I'm probably stuck with having to do that.

[Matt]

Well, as I said, the pops don't when the output mode was switched from WASAPI to Direct Sound so the pops are not in the TV recording itself which presumably means they come from transitions of the signal being muted to coming back on or something along those lines.

I've researched the signal and network connection the SiliconDust tuners are getting using SiliconDust's tools and there doesn't appear to be anything wrong there.  No matter what, TV signals are going to have occasional blips; that's pretty much unavoidable.  I was just hoping to be able to have 1 audio configuration that works for everything without the need to mess around with switching zones, but it looks like I'm probably stuck with having to do that.

Well that's a mystery to me why WASAPI would pop and DirectSound would not.  You mentioned trying to adjust the buffering.  Did anything make any difference?

Do you have a couple different outputs you could test to see if it's specific to one output?

Thanks.

[greynolds]

Well that's a mystery to me why WASAPI would pop and DirectSound would not.  You mentioned trying to adjust the buffering.  Did anything make any difference?

Do you have a couple different outputs you could test to see if it's specific to one output?

Thanks.

The only thing that seems to make a difference is using DirectSound instead of WASAPI, which didn't make any sense to me either.

I should save a recording that exhibits the problem and do some better testing with it.  Assuming certain pops are repeatable, I can obviously cycle through the various options and get a more definitive answer on whether any choices resolve the issue.