HardwareBanter

HardwareBanter (http://www.hardwarebanter.com/index.php)
-   Homebuilt PC's (http://www.hardwarebanter.com/forumdisplay.php?f=36)
-   -   Creative X-Fi Elite Pro Breakout Box SPDIF/Optical OUT to Denon 1909Receiver Optical IN not working ? (http://www.hardwarebanter.com/showthread.php?t=199360)

[email protected] January 4th 19 07:57 PM

Creative X-Fi Elite Pro Breakout Box SPDIF/Optical OUT to Denon 1909Receiver Optical IN not working ?
 
Hello,

Today I bought an SPDIF-optical/TOS link cable to experiment with soundblaster to receiver audio processing options.

The idea is to use creative labs audio processing from x-fi in combination with denon receiver audio processing to see what the ultimate effect/output/sound would be like.

However I am having difficulties getting it working.

It seems the SPDIF out is MUTED ?!?

When I run the test software as follows:

1. Launch creative console

2. Launch THX setup via it or directly via pop-up menu

Below it is an icon that looks like a speaker with a plus above it.

This is "creative diagnostics"

During "mixer settings check" it displays:

Master MUTE
Wave checked
Midi checked
Soundbank checked

(It also does some driver analysis).

So the results of this check is weird.

For normal/analog output the master is not muted and everything is fine.

When switching to SPDIF/out via volume control panel of windows the master seems to be MUTED ?!?!

Why is this ?

I have never used SPDIF/optical/tos link before so I am not sure what is normally supposed to happen.

Is it suppose to detect signals automatically and if not it auto-mutes ?

I tried all kinds of input modes on the receiver, but nothing seems to work.

The toslink cable is 5 meters. Perhaps it's too long ?

I did see a faint red light shine through it... perhaps the cable is of bad quality.

I will take it to a store later on to test it out in that store if they can to see if it will work or not :) Hopefully they can help with testing... not sure if they can though.

I think it's probably not the cable.

Especially since the software displays "MUTED".

In volume control panel it does not appear muted... I tried reverse it by muting it... that also does not work...

The master volume stays muted in windows according to this test.

What I could try is re-install all drives but I'd rather not do that.

I also tried experimenting with creative alchemy to see if that will allow directx directsound processing in world of warships to be done by the creative labs audio processors in the hopes that the game can run ultra sound mode on my system.

First test was low performance cause svchost.exe was consuming 50% cpu after reboot cause of alchemy installation so later will try again to see if world of warships can benefit from alchemy software... I already added it manually to it.

For now I would like to get SPDIF/optical working cause I am curious what kind of audio processing options might be available on the receiver if it uses optical in.

I also installed zoom player... but so far no luck.. perhaps additional audio codecs are needed... though I believe theoretically spdif/tos link should also be able to simply play stereo sound via pcm/direct or so ?

windows 7 has dts audio and dolby digital available for spdif out.

Though I believe the denon receiver is capable of processing many different formats.

If the basic audio test of windows 7 is not working then I don't think install extra software is going to help much.... zoom player for example... probably not gonna help much... though I will continue experimenting a little bit with it.

Perhaps installing something special so that more audio codecs become available might help ?!

But for now it seems to be some kind of weird MUTE problem ?!

Ofcourse maybe the breakout box is defective... the led light failed for main volume or something... but everything else seems to work.

Perhaps SPDIF out was disabled in driver to fix some weird driver problem by creative or so ?!

So any ideas why the master volume seems to be muted according to this test ?!?

I could try a different operating system...

Perhaps Linux Mint, though I kinda nuked my dvd drive a little bit...

Laptop does not have spdif out so testing with that is unfortunately not possible.

Running a different operating system seems an interesting idea for this particular test... not sure if linux/mint supports spdif optical and such.

This OS test might shine some more light on if it's a hardware or software problem. If linux mint does work via SPDIF/TOS then it's some kind of windows software problem.

Bye for now,
Skybuck.

[email protected] January 4th 19 08:16 PM

Creative X-Fi Elite Pro Breakout Box SPDIF/Optical OUT to Denon1909 Receiver Optical IN not working ?
 
Creative Labs has some documentation online about what I and some call the "breakout box". It is also known as "I/O Console"

Page 20 and 21 of this PDF document:

https://documentation.help/Creative-...umentation.pdf

Page 21 shows the rear of the device.

Page 22 mentions optical in/out and such.

I assume I have to use Optical OUT and connect it to the denon receiver TV/CBL optical IN.

I also tried Optical IN on this console I/O so far no luck...

Hmmm,

Bye,
Skybuck.

[email protected] January 4th 19 08:16 PM

Creative X-Fi Elite Pro Breakout Box SPDIF/Optical OUT to Denon1909 Receiver Optical IN not working ?
 
Creative Labs has some documentation online about what I and some call the "breakout box". It is also known as "I/O Console"

Page 20 and 21 of this PDF document:

https://documentation.help/Creative-...umentation.pdf

Page 21 shows the rear of the device.

Page 22 mentions optical in/out and such.

I assume I have to use Optical OUT and connect it to the denon receiver TV/CBL optical IN.

I also tried Optical IN on this console I/O so far no luck...

Hmmm,

Bye,
Skybuck.

Flasherly[_2_] January 4th 19 09:39 PM

Creative X-Fi Elite Pro Breakout Box SPDIF/Optical OUT to Denon 1909 Receiver Optical IN not working ?
 
On Fri, 4 Jan 2019 10:57:44 -0800 (PST),
wrote:

My ASUS TOSLINK is by default muted, although the drivers at times can
be difficult and require a reinstall ... to get any sound at all. I
also do not have a TOSLINK receiver interface external ... since a
Behringer digital EQ crapped out on me. I replaced the EQ unit with a
TOSLINK/SPDIF converter unit and run analogue into a Behringer mixer.

The TOSLINK/SPDIF converter unit I bought, they're not too expensive
an item, are a commonplace item for especially the DVD/BlueRay film
crowd, converting down TOSLINK to analogue when they haven't amps such
as your Denon to process digital output from a likes of setbox DVD
players.

The converter is also handy also to establish either the soundboard
output and test for signal compatibility between that and the Denon.
More likely a driver or software setting is obstructing the
CreativeLab soundboard output.



Hello,

Today I bought an SPDIF-optical/TOS link cable to experiment with soundblaster to receiver audio processing options.

The idea is to use creative labs audio processing from x-fi in combination with denon receiver audio processing to see what the ultimate effect/output/sound would be like.

However I am having difficulties getting it working.

It seems the SPDIF out is MUTED ?!?

When I run the test software as follows:

1. Launch creative console

2. Launch THX setup via it or directly via pop-up menu

Below it is an icon that looks like a speaker with a plus above it.

This is "creative diagnostics"

During "mixer settings check" it displays:

Master MUTE
Wave checked
Midi checked
Soundbank checked

(It also does some driver analysis).

So the results of this check is weird.

For normal/analog output the master is not muted and everything is fine.

When switching to SPDIF/out via volume control panel of windows the master seems to be MUTED ?!?!

Why is this ?

I have never used SPDIF/optical/tos link before so I am not sure what is normally supposed to happen.

Is it suppose to detect signals automatically and if not it auto-mutes ?

I tried all kinds of input modes on the receiver, but nothing seems to work.

The toslink cable is 5 meters. Perhaps it's too long ?

I did see a faint red light shine through it... perhaps the cable is of bad quality.

I will take it to a store later on to test it out in that store if they can to see if it will work or not :) Hopefully they can help with testing... not sure if they can though.

I think it's probably not the cable.

Especially since the software displays "MUTED".

In volume control panel it does not appear muted... I tried reverse it by muting it... that also does not work...

The master volume stays muted in windows according to this test.

What I could try is re-install all drives but I'd rather not do that.

I also tried experimenting with creative alchemy to see if that will allow directx directsound processing in world of warships to be done by the creative labs audio processors in the hopes that the game can run ultra sound mode on my system.

First test was low performance cause svchost.exe was consuming 50% cpu after reboot cause of alchemy installation so later will try again to see if world of warships can benefit from alchemy software... I already added it manually to it.

For now I would like to get SPDIF/optical working cause I am curious what kind of audio processing options might be available on the receiver if it uses optical in.

I also installed zoom player... but so far no luck.. perhaps additional audio codecs are needed... though I believe theoretically spdif/tos link should also be able to simply play stereo sound via pcm/direct or so ?

windows 7 has dts audio and dolby digital available for spdif out.

Though I believe the denon receiver is capable of processing many different formats.

If the basic audio test of windows 7 is not working then I don't think install extra software is going to help much.... zoom player for example... probably not gonna help much... though I will continue experimenting a little bit with it.

Perhaps installing something special so that more audio codecs become available might help ?!

But for now it seems to be some kind of weird MUTE problem ?!

Ofcourse maybe the breakout box is defective... the led light failed for main volume or something... but everything else seems to work.

Perhaps SPDIF out was disabled in driver to fix some weird driver problem by creative or so ?!

So any ideas why the master volume seems to be muted according to this test ?!?

I could try a different operating system...

Perhaps Linux Mint, though I kinda nuked my dvd drive a little bit...

Laptop does not have spdif out so testing with that is unfortunately not possible.

Running a different operating system seems an interesting idea for this particular test... not sure if linux/mint supports spdif optical and such.

This OS test might shine some more light on if it's a hardware or software problem. If linux mint does work via SPDIF/TOS then it's some kind of windows software problem.

Bye for now,
Skybuck.


[email protected] January 4th 19 09:59 PM

Creative X-Fi Elite Pro Breakout Box SPDIF/Optical OUT to Denon1909 Receiver Optical IN not working ?
 
My ASUS TOSLINK is by default muted

How did you get it unmuted ?

Bye,
Skybuck.

[email protected] January 4th 19 11:03 PM

Creative X-Fi Elite Pro Breakout Box SPDIF/Optical OUT to Denon1909 Receiver Optical IN not working ?
 
I am now re-installing the creative labs software.

First I tried to uninstall as much as possible of creative labs software, had to uninstall twice.

creative labs
soundblaster x-fi

stuff removed via uninstall programs.

I even de-installed the driver via admin panel/computer management/device management and so forth.

I did do a rescan of hardware changes and then windows re-installs a basic driver.

After restart of operating system I did notice a decoder panel that wasn't there with the full software which is kinda odd.

Perhaps this is something new... it had dobly and dts settings.

Anyway now during the re-installation of original DVD/ISO I come across this
text:

"
1.2 Muting Digital SPDIF Output When Playing DVD-Audio Media

Sound Blaster X-Fi uses Content Protection for Pre-recorded
Media (CPPM) that has been developed by 4C(r) comprising IBM(r),
Intel(r), MEI(r) and Toshiba(r). Part of the copy protection feature
requires that all SPDIF output of Sound Blaster X-Fi products be
muted during DVD-Audio media playback.
You can still listen to the DVD-Audio media content through
analog speakers.
"

This mentions muting of SPDIF out which seems what I am experiencing.

Perhaps the software detect HDP (high definition content/protection) on receiver and forces the SPDIF out to be muted ?!?!?

This would be very strange.

Bye for now,
Skybuck.

[email protected] January 5th 19 02:54 AM

Creative X-Fi Elite Pro Breakout Box SPDIF/Optical OUT to Denon1909 Receiver Optical IN not working ?
 
Creative Labs definetly has the worst drivers/installation cd software and update software and repair software in the history of drivers.

I tried to remove all creative x-fi drivers.

Re-installed from installation CD.

Was not possible, perhaps had to restart first or remove audio drivers and restarts.

I have never done so many restarts in my life.

About 100 so far or so.

I tried everything:

1. Installed windows 10 drives onto windows 7, apperently these will work and give sound but the Console Launcher crashes...

So I cannot excess it's nice blue menu software.

2. Removed drivers manually tried previous version also fails to solve this problem.

3. I tried the repair tool it seems retarded, it thinks I installed software to program files, while in reality I installed to tools.

The biggest problem occured when trying to re-install from installation cd.

Entertainment section failed at 24% or at least it seemed so...

It seemed to get stuck/hang.... 1% cpu usage so I terminated it.

Stupidly enough it seems to run demo32.exe.

Anyway this is where the problems started.

I cannot de-install creative system information.

Only part that won't de-install properly.

It seems somewhat crucial.

CmntSupt.cab or something is in a different place the installshield thinks it is.

Installshield is also pretty crap.

THE BIGGEST SCARE was when my PC fans would not spin up after I tried a cold-reset.

THIS SCARED THE **** OUT OF ME.

Multiple restarts of PC failed to bring the fans back alive...

Somehow they were not getting enough power ?! Or somehow a plug was disconnected.

I opened PC case and re-attached all connectors.

I highly doubt it had anything to do with this.

More likely is my favorite hypothesis that frequent reboots is bad...

This kinda proved it... some many power surges during boot and shutdown... somehow it screws up the electricity.

I can even here plops... when shutting down.

Anyway I am not happy with current situation.

Not sure what is causoing Console Launcher to suddenly crash.

This suxxx balls incredibly.

from 18:00 till 3:00 am I've been messing with spdif... and now for the last hours just trying to get everything working like it was software-wise.

I kinda knew this deinstall was risky... but holy****... does creative labs suck right now at their software ****...

Just for the fun of it I am gonna nuke the entire ****ing thing and see if it can actually **** up everything.

Gonna choose "repair all" and enjoy the firework bugs.

Bye for now,
Skybuck.








Flasherly[_2_] January 5th 19 03:43 AM

Creative X-Fi Elite Pro Breakout Box SPDIF/Optical OUT to Denon 1909 Receiver Optical IN not working ?
 
On Fri, 4 Jan 2019 12:59:34 -0800 (PST),
wrote:

My ASUS TOSLINK is by default muted


How did you get it unmuted ?


Software interface has a test mode for whatever output audio ports are
defined. Apply the test and a recorded voice is initiated to speak
out the identities of the speakers connected.

[email protected] January 5th 19 03:49 AM

Creative X-Fi Elite Pro Breakout Box SPDIF/Optical OUT to Denon1909 Receiver Optical IN not working ?
 
Well Well Well.

I'll be fair to creative labs.

I just removed everything and this time it did work.

Creative System Information was also successfully de-installed.

So I guess the repair tool did work.

I will now proceed with de-installing the audio drivers as well.

And then I will give Daniel's drivers a try...

Though I feel it might be a bit risky...

If his drives do not de-install properly then hmmm ouch.

But this disabling of functionality intrigues me.

Someday I will re-install windows xp onto some harddisk.

And then compare Windows XP/EAX sound vs Windows 7/OpenAL/Alchemy to see if there is a big difference yes or no.

So far I did not use Alchemy... but it seems necessary for directsound games or so...

Not sure if World of Warships might benefit from alchemy... so far I think not but not entirely sure...

Most of wows audio processing seems to be done in cpu thread... custom software by creator of wows...

Kinda wish they used some more capabilities of this soundblaster though... and do the audio processing on there or find a way to accelerate it...

But maybe their audio processing is way too advanced for creative labs openal and directsound... not sure though.

Bye,
Skybuck.

Flasherly[_2_] January 5th 19 04:10 AM

Creative X-Fi Elite Pro Breakout Box SPDIF/Optical OUT to Denon 1909 Receiver Optical IN not working ?
 
On Fri, 4 Jan 2019 18:50:38 -0800 (PST),
wrote:

I am starting to suspect SPDIF might have been disabled in newer creative labs drivers.


Precisely what happened to me, except they were OEM drivers written
from product endusers. I had to uninstall, reinstall the ASUS drivers
to get the card to even work again in some instances.


All times are GMT +1. The time now is 11:09 AM.

Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.6.4
Copyright ©2000 - 2024, Jelsoft Enterprises Ltd.
HardwareBanter.com