[pulseaudio-discuss] [WIP] Passthrough support

[Anssi Hannula]

On 24.03.2011 16:18, pl bossart wrote:
>> It seems that 384k sample rates aren't supported directly in alsa, I did
>> some patching to no avail yet.
>>
>> In any case if the channel count can be specified with passthrough the
>> following should work.
>>
>> paplay --raw --channels=2 --rate=192000 --passthrough File.dts.spdif192khz (
>> this works).
>>
>> paplay --raw --channels=4 --rate=192000 --passthrough File.dts.spdif384khz (
>> this fails).
>>
>> To passthrough dolby true-hd it looks like it'll be necessary for more than
>> two channels to work.
> 
> There was a thread on dts-hd in alsa-devel at some point. Anssi
> (cc:ed) contributed some patches for HDMI and provided the information
> below on ffmpeg configurations.
> You may want to try at the alsa level before trying with pulseaudio to
> make sure your setup is correct. I tend to believe you have to go for
> 8ch @ 192kHz to make this work based on my limited understanding of
> HBR.

Indeed for HBR you need to always specify 8 channels and use rate to
control the final rate (i.e. you either use "normal" 2 channel
passthrough or HBR 8 channel passthrough).

For example to passthrough the abovementioned 384 kHz stream you need to
use 8 channels and rate of 96000. However, I think 384kHz DTS bitstream
is generally *not* supported by A/V receivers, so you probably want to
use 768kHz (8 channels, 192kHz).

(note: I haven't tested whether HBR works with pulseaudio or not)


> The DTS-HD part is not merged yet (patch is in ffmpeg-devel@), but the
> TrueHD and E-AC-3 support is already there in ffmpeg trunk.
> 
> The ffmpeg commandline to use is:
> ffmpeg -i input.file -f spdif output.spdif
> 
> For DTS-HD files, to get full passthrough (i.e. not only core), a
> -dtshd_rate parameter is needed, which sets the output IEC958 rate.
> ffmpeg -i input.file -f spdif -dtshd_rate 192000 output.spdif
> ffmpeg -i input.file -f spdif -dtshd_rate 768000 output.spdif
> 192000Hz is enough for streams that have a bitrate below 6.144Mbps, which
> means all DTS-HD High Resolution Audio files and even many of the DTS-HD
> Master Audio (the latter are lossless VBR).
> 
> To play the spdif files back, I use
> aplay -D hdmi:CARD=$CARDNAME,DEV=$DEVICENUM,AES0=0x06 -c $CHANCOUNT -r
> $RATE file.spdif
> 
> - replacing $CARDNAME with the card name
> - replacing $DEVICENUM with 0..3 depending on card and hdmi port (for
> non-zero DEVICENUM you'll need a patch from alsa git:
> http://git.alsa-project.org/?p=alsa-lib.git;a=commitdiff;h=e6d5dcf1f625984605d362338d71162de45a6c60
> )
> - set $CHANCOUNT and $RATE as per below
>  - rate 192000 and channels 2 for IEC958 rate 192 kHz (for e.g. 48 kHz
> E-AC-3, and DTS-HD when the IEC958 rate was set to 192000 in ffmpeg)
>  - rate 192000 and channels 8 for IEC958 rate 768 kHz (for most TrueHD
> files, and for DTS-HD when the rate was set to 768000)
> - note that having the 0x02 bit (non-pcm) set in AES0 is mandatory when
> $CHANCOUNT is larger than 2, as ALSA uses it to determine whether to use
> HBR or not. The additional 0x04 (non-copyright) I use above is not
> mandatory, but is the alsa default so I kept it.


-- 
Anssi Hannula