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[jcisbig]

Hey All,

I have some audio output questions that I was hoping to get answered.  First of all, some background on my setup.  I primarily use JRiver to play my library of music files (mostly FLAC (both 16/44.1 and 24/192) and some mp3) from my desktop computer.  I output WASAPI audio out of my ATI 5770 GPU via HDMI going to my a/v receiver (Emotiva UMC-200).  In general, I have the DSP Studio Output Format window set to output 2 channel audio at 192khz for all sample rates.  This works just great for my music because it upsamples all of my CD quality FLAC files (not sure that it actually does anything), while giving me the full resolution of the 24/192 files that I have as well.  The only problem with this method is that my receiver apparently can't take a 24/192 signal and apply "fake processing" (Prologic IIx, DTS Neo:6, etc.) to a 2 channel audio stream.  This is normally fine as I prefer to listen to music in 2 channel anyway rather than spreading it around my 7.1 system as I feel it sounds better and more natural that way.

However, I recently started playing a few DVD's through my computer and I realized that I probably wasn't outputting 5.1 audio because of the way that I had JRiver set up for my music.  Any dvd that I play will have the audio output at the 192 sample rate, which means a) I can't spread the audio into my 7.1 setup due to the limitations of my receiver, and b) even if I was able to spread the audio with prologic IIx or Neo:6, JRiver is only sending the L/R channels of audio, not the full 5.1 soundtrack.  Now, I can fix issue A by chaning the output format to 48khz instead of 192khz whenever I watch a movie, and then change it back to 192 after I'm done, but I'm still left with issue B (it's not outputting 5.1 audio).  When I try to change the output from 2ch (stereo) to "source number of channels" or "5.1" JRiver tells me that "something went wrong with playback" and tells me to change it back to a 2ch output instead of the source or 5.1 options.  This happens with both 48khz and 192khz sample rate selections in the Output Format dialogue box.

So, a few questions:
1) First of all, the most important thing is figuring out how to get a DVD to output it's 5.1 audio through JRiver and out via HDMI to my receiver.
2) Is there a way to configure JRiver to output either 2ch or 5.1ch (or 7.1ch) based on the source that it is playing?
3) Is there a way to bypass or ignore the sample rate selection in the properties section of my playback devices in Windows 7?  (so that JRiver can determine the computer's output sample rate, otherwise I have to manually change the windows 7 output device properties every time I switch back and forth.)

Thanks in advance for the help!

[astromo]

Using the Wiki as your road map, start here:
http://wiki.jrmediacenter.com/index.php/Category:Frequently_Asked_Questions

Go to Audio Setup and review the advice there. Note there are a number of stubs to work through. The way I'm set up regarding sample rate is "No change" in DSP Studio > Output Format (as per recommendation). I'm not sure what advantage upsampling audio at 44.1kHz to 192kHz gives you. My personal view is to minimise processing and leave the audio alone where possible.

I'd also suggest that you set Channles to "Source number of channels" and see what happens. I'd expect this setting to automatically handle 2ch and 5.1. For your 7.1 audio, MC has an Channel option of 5.1 (inside 7.1 channel container) [note that I'm a plain vanilla stereo guy] but I'd expect this feature would make sense if your amp is limited to 5.1.

Pay particular attention to this graphic:

As I understand it, by enabling "Allow applications to take exclusive control of this device" sound management is handed over to MC. I'd recommend that you tick that box.

Regarding setting up for stereo for Audio and 5.1 for DVD then you should have a look at the entry on Zones. I've seen forum discussion on auto switching between zones depending on media type. I don't use this, so I'm not in a position to offer much useful advice, but it shouldn't be too hard to find with a bit of searching.

[jcisbig]

Thanks Astromo for that reply.  Parts of it were quite helpful, and other parts led me down a few experimental paths that ended up helping me quite a bit!  After playing around with things for a while, here's the progress that I've made.

1) I've created two zones so far, a Music Zone and a Movie Zone.  The Music Zone outputs 2 channel music at 192khz.  The Movie Zone upscales audio to 7.1 and outputs it at 192khz also.

2) I figured out that I made a silly error with getting 5.1 audio as well.  I had my GPU (through which I'm outputting my audio) setup as a stereo device, after I reconfigured it to a 7.1 channel device, I was able to get surround easily from JRiver.  I also then had to change my Music Zone to output "2 Channels inside of a 7.1 container" in order to get my music to output through the GPU.

3) I'm still tweaking, but I haven't yet been able to get a 2 channel music file to go through my "Movie Zone" so that JRiver upscales it to 7.1.  We'll see how my next experiments go...

[jcisbig]

Ok, I have sucessfully been able to play a 2 channel music file in my "Movie Zone" to produce a 7.1 surround experience with the music, so that's a win!  However, I have a few 2 channel videos that won't expand into 7.1 without significant audio issues (clipping, distortion, stuttering, etc.).  I tried increasing the prebuffer duration in "playback options" and it had no effect.  Any ideas on how I can smooth out the audio performance on a 2 ch video expanding into 7.1?  Or any ideas on why isn't not working well?  It's kinda strange to me that it works just fine with music but not with a video?


Edit:

Issue was fixed after I turned off the VideoClock option.