sound overdrive

[gtman]

dedicated to this http://www.mirillis.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=16&t=205 topic
i want to open a new one.
this time i want to understand the problem and i hope that also some team mebers will join.

the problem is that in most of ac3 mkvs the sound is overdriven oder overbuffed.
i dont know yet if it also happens with dts sound files, but i will test it soon.

my pc is a amd 64 3200+ with an ati hd3850 (with full h264 hw acc.) and a x-fi xtreme gamer fatal1ty professional.
the playback of 1080p movies (mkv & untouched m2ts) is running at ~20% cpu usage.
this way it works fine.
i dont got these problems with playback on kmplayer or vlc.
i think its a problem with the splash player (maby in connection with the xfi)
i also didnt have any other codecs installed or something else unusual done with my os.

i really like the splash player and i want to use it für my hd movies but the sound problem makes me very angry

is there some help for us guys with this problem?

(sry for my english)

hope to hear you soon,
bye gtman

[Solveig]

I too have this problem with AC3 playback in Splash Lite, particularly with the louder end of the spectrum in which there is very noticeable "clipping" or "crackling".

Here is a sample in which it is particularly noticeable:

(Currently using the latest Splash Lite 1.3)

This problem does not occur when using WMP 12. Maybe it's because WMP 12 is Dolby Digital Plus Certified?
I notice this logo appears whenever I play a file with AC3 audio:

[gtman]

yeah, this sample is right, i get the same things too.
can somebody else check this please?
what do you have for a soundcard Solveig?

im also using 1.3

[Solveig]

I use a Sound Blaster Audigy 4 card with the latest drivers for Win7 64-bit, although I doubt this problem is hardware-related as it doesn't happen in other players I've tried. I think it is more like a sampling error or bug in the Splash Lite surround sound decoder. When working in audio recording and restoration I get clipping/crackling artifacts when the dynamic range has been increased way beyond the original sample frequency, so I think this is just an issue with Dolby Digital Plus (E-AC3) Dynamic Range Control in Splash Lite.

I see Splash supports AC3 but E-AC3 is different and is not backwards compatible with regular Dolby Digital (AC3) decoders, however I think this is unrelated to the issue at hand.

I might be wrong though as this is all just speculation.

[Solveig]

Whoops, I didn't notice this thread: http://www.mirillis.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=16&t=28

Looks like E-AC3 is not supported at the moment due to Dolby licensing not being completed yet.

So it seems like it's just a simple dynamic range control issue with regular AC3 audio.
I'll also try to find some suitable DTS samples to test and see if this is a problem with multichannel audio in general or just AC3.