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[Livin]

I just installed cannot get audio routing.

I want to create zones as such...

1) Outside (analog 1)
2) Inside (analog 2)
3) Home Theater (digital, optical)

Setup...
MC on XP Pro SP3
SoundMax ADI AD1988B 8 channel (ASUS P5B Deluxe mobo)
installed ASIO4ALL and it recognizes my SoundMax properly (no errors)

Testing...
MC ASIO diagnostics looks fine
If I set the output to 0 it routes audio to all outputs (analog & digital)
I have tried other output settings 1,2,4,6 and no audio gets routed at all at that point

Can someone give me some info on how to get this working?

thx!

[Matt]

It could be an ASIO4ALL thing.  Maybe give DirectSound a shot.

[Livin]

DirectSound does not allow you to specify the output connector (offset channel) so that will not work.

My chipset is one over 50% of the mobos made today, I'd hope there is some experience with it here?

[Livin]

Can anyone help with this? If I'm going to buy MC multi-zone must work, otherwise I cannot justify the cost.

[JimH]

Matt is the person who wrote the zone control system.  Why don't you try his advice?

[Livin]

I DID... per my post directly after his. His suggestion does not work. I'm not a noob.

Matt
If you can work though this with me I'd appreciate it. I'd be happy to work on this via IM?

[JimH]

Sorry.  You didn't say you tried DirectSound. 

We can't giv you much help debugging this.  MC's zone control works. 

If there is a problem it's almost certain to be at the driver or config level.

Try a different version of asio4all.  Try searching on asio4all both here and at google.  Try volume control options.

Maybe someone else with experience with asio4all could suggest other possibilities.

[JimH]

Are you actually switching zones in MC?

Maybe you could describe in more detail what you mean here:

MC ASIO diagnostics looks fine
If I set the output to 0 it routes audio to all outputs (analog & digital)
I have tried other output settings 1,2,4,6 and no audio gets routed at all at that point

[Livin]

I have tired to setup 1 & 2 zones. I'm using the latest beta of ASIO4ALL. I can try a previous version.

I have tried different settings and changed them to try different options but none route audio to specific outputs. In the Zone Manager \ Config, setting 'Channel offset' 0 sends audio to all audio card outputs (analog & digital). No other 'Channel offset' sends to any audio output.

I have installed a old Creative Labs PCI card and will try that too.

It would be nice if MC could detect actual Outputs and show a drop-down. At minimum, a doc explaining how to setup multi-zone config (if it exists I cannot find it) and the options.

I'll do a few more tests tonight and report back... thx!

[Livin]

MC does not "see" my Creative Labs PCI card?

Matt, can you explain how to get audio routing?

Direct Sound does not let me choose a card and ASIO4ALL just has 'Channel Offset' - which is vague (at best).

Is the usage/setup documented anywhere?

[Alex B]

The zone system can use the audio devices that available in Windows. You can use it with two or more sound cards (or with a sound card that exposes itself as more than one device). In addition you can "split" a 5.1 device so that you can create max. 3 zones that output stereo sound (LF+RF, C+LFE, LR+RR).

ASIO needs exclusive access to the device. Unless your device can be seen as several separate audio devices in Windows Control Panel it might not work with an ASIO driver. I have not tested if it would be possible to run more than one ASIO drivers simultaneously when the system has more than one ASIO capable sound devices.

[Livin]

Alex,
Thank you for the background info, this might help but there is an overwhelming lack of how-to info.

Can you give guidance as to exactly how to get this working?

I tried Direct Sound (had not even installed ASIO4ALL) and did not route, output on all channels no matter what.

Then I installed ASIO4ALL... on 0 same result as above, any other no soun - period.

I put the Creative Labs card in since the built-in 7.1 ADI card was not properly being utilized by MC zoning.

Considering my mobo has one of the most popular audio chipsets (multiple variations nearly exactly the same, using the same drivers) made in the past 3 years I'd think there would be SOME experience with it and MC?

my Device Manager below...


This is very frustrating, I'm trying very hard here to get something working, on a clean XP install, that others have said works perfectly... maybe there are only a handful of people actually using zoning so maybe it is not vetted?

My experience with MC so far... not so good, can someone help me change my mind?

[Listener]

Livin,

> This is very frustrating, I'm trying very hard here to get something working, on a clean XP install, that others have said works
> perfectly... maybe there are only a handful of people actually using zoning so maybe it is not vetted?

You are making some unreasonable assumptions about your onboard sound, about ASIO4all and about MC 12.

- Your onboard sound is designed to provide multi-channel sound for home theater (in one room).  It might or might not provide 2 or more independent pairs for stereo in different rooms.

- If you can't see multiple stereo channel pairs with the DirectSound interface, that means that the audio driver for onboard sound isn't providing it.  You could also try the Waveout interface instead of DirectSound. Perhaps more than one stereo pair is supported there.

- ASIO4all uses the audio driver for onboard sound to communicate with the audio hardware.  If you aren't hearing anything for some channel offset values, it may mean that the onboard sound driver is at fault.

- MC's ASIO output works with a well defined interface. (ASIO)  The whole point of the interface is to allow a player program to support that interface and soundcard drivers provided by the manufacturer of the soundcard to implement the other side of the interface.  If both sides are implemented properly, the player program does need to know about the details of the audio hardware.  It is up to the ASIO driver to route the output stream to the right I/O addresses on the audio hardware.  It is far more likely that your problem is caused by the ASIO4All driver or the onboard sound driver itself than by MC.

- Your next step might be to try a different player program that can use ASIO for output.  Foobar2000 is one.  Some other players can work with a plug-in to do ASIO output.

- You are making the assumption that if nobody has used the same onboard sound for multi-zone output, then few people are using  more than one zone with any sound card.  That is faulty reasoning on your part. 

I'm currently using 3 zones right now.  ASIO ouput for 2 zones using PCI sound cards and DirectSound for 1 zone with a USB audio device.  One of the PCI sound cards has more than 2 output channels.  In that case, MC passes the specified channel offset to the ASIO driver correctly. It all works without a hitch. 

Search for forum threads about zones and you'll see that other people are using multiple zones too.  Most people using more than one zone aren't necessarily using onboard sound for zones. Quality is often pretty marginal.
 
> My experience with MC so far... not so good, can someone help me change my mind?

Try a different player and see if it does what you want.  If not, continue to use the Creative card or buy an inexpensive PCI soundcard to get multi-zone output. (Or a buy USB audio device if you have a laptop computer.)

Bill

[JimH]

Thanks, Bill.  And Alex.

[gappie]

i found no problems setting different zones for my audio card using asio. the help file gave all the info i needed.

i dont know much about the soundmax card. but since you said that all the channels worked when under asio ofset 0. have you checked the settings in the controlpanel for the soundmax card.

[Alex B]

Livin,

Did you actually try the Direct Sound/Channel options (for the analog output):



For instance, to configure two analog zones set Zone 1 to L+R and Zone 2 to C+LFE. Connect the Zone 1 amp to the L & R output connectors and the Zone 2 amp to the C & LFE output connectors.

If this works with one of your sound devices, you should be able to use the digital output with the other device if it has a digital output. (I don't know if your Creative card is multi-channel or if it has a digital output.)

[Livin]

Some success this time ... also found out, by trial/error, any zoning change requires MC restart.

Got 2 zones working on the internal card w/ DirectSound... tried it 3 times previously before trying ASIO. Have not done anything new/different this time either.

One more thing to tackle... Isolate the digital output.

The digital output always plays the front channels. I'm wondering if I can 'turn off' just the digital output on the zones?

[gappie]

Some success this time ... also found out, by trial/error, any zoning change requires MC restart.

no that should not be.. is there any difference in the signal you send to zone 1 and zone 2. have you checked the settings for the card? i understood that there can be some problems there from Mr Google.
if you just want to complain, you are doing fine. when you want people to help, you might want to give a bit more info and reactions to some of the suggestions here.

[Alex B]

One more thing to tackle... Isolate the digital output.

The digital output always plays the front channels. I'm wondering if I can 'turn off' just the digital output on the zones?

Would the following work?

Zone 1 = LF + RF  -->  SPDIF
Zone 2 = C + LFE  -->  analog
Zone 3 = LR + RR  -->  analog

[Livin]

Alex,
I'll try that and report back. Thx for the help!

[Matt]

Playback changes take effect when you stop playback.  The options dialog says that at the bottom, but it's easy to miss.

[Bill Kearney]

Also consider that using a cheapie USB sound card works too.  Makes for a simpler way to get zones working.