Many HiFiBerry DAC users asked us about XBMC support. Today (February 2014), the ALSA sound card support in XBMC is still in an early stage in XBMCv13. For video playback there is a new “dvdplayer” that will replace the current video player in the future.
Dom Cobley from Broadcom has created an experimental OpenElec build that supports the HiFiBerry DAC. This is not an official OpenElec version yet! If it doesn’t work, there is no support. It will have bugs! This build includes a hack that forces output to 16-bit audio, as the 24-bit audio does not work at the moment with OpenElec. This seems to be a bug in the underlying I2S sound subsystem. It is not clear yet, how to fix this. We well work with the developers to find a solution. However, we can’t guarantee this.
- Install OpenElec
- Get the experimental build from here:OpenELEC-RPi.arm-devel-20140226212939-r17638-g6fc6264.tar
- Upload this build to the running OpenElec system via SMB. See http://wiki.openelec.tv/index.php?title=Updating_OpenELEC
- Reboot
- ssh to the system (as root, default password is openlec) and create the file /storage/.config/modules-load.d/hifiberry.conf
You can just copy/paste the following code to your command line. If you want to create the file with an editor of your choice, do not include the first line starting with “cat” and the last “EOF” line! -
cat >/storage/.config/modules-load.d/hifiberry.conf <<EOF snd_soc_bcm2708 snd_soc_bcm2708_i2s bcm2708_dmaengine snd_soc_pcm5102a snd_soc_hifiberry_dac EOF
- You will also want to create /storage/.xbmc/userdata/advancedsettings.xml:
cat >/storage/.xbmc/userdata/advancedsettings.xml <<EOF <advancedsettings> <video> <defaultplayer>dvdplayer</defaultplayer> <defaultdvdplayer>dvdplayer</defaultdvdplayer> </video> </advancedsettings> EOF
- Reboot and you should get a third option in settings/system/audio output/audio output device (snd_rpi_hihiberry_dac).