Tag Archives: openelec

Experimental XBMC build with digital out of AC3 and DTS over SPDIF

11 Replies

imgresDom Cobley was again working on XBMC and the HiFiBerry Digi. There is now an experimental build that supports AC3 and DTS bitstream output. That means you can now send Dolby Digital and DTS soundtracks to your home theater amplifier over an coax or optical link.

The OpenElec build can be downloaded from here: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/3669512/temp/OpenELEC-RPi.arm-devel-20140308190048-r17871-g8a2f22b.tar

Note that this is again a very experimental setup. It needed a hack in the XBMC code. This must be fixed in the ALSA driver. While we will work on this, we can’t say, when we will be able to change this.

Check out this article how to configure it. Note that for the HiFiBerry Digi you need the following module configuration:

cat >/storage/.config/modules-load.d/hifiberry.conf  <<EOF
snd_soc_bcm2708
snd_soc_bcm2708_i2s
bcm2708_dmaengine
snd_soc_wm8804
snd_soc_hifiberry_digi
EOF

OpenElec experimental build

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imgresMany 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.

  1. Install OpenElec
  2. Get the experimental build from here:OpenELEC-RPi.arm-devel-20140226212939-r17638-g6fc6264.tar
  3. Upload this build to the running OpenElec system via SMB. See http://wiki.openelec.tv/index.php?title=Updating_OpenELEC
  4. Reboot
  5. 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!
  6. 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
  7. 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
  8. Reboot and you should get a third option in settings/system/audio output/audio output device (snd_rpi_hihiberry_dac).