Delayed audio response from receiver after inactivity

Headcase_Fargone

Limp Gawd
Joined
Mar 25, 2010
Messages
284
I recently set up a new HTPC and I'm experiencing some weirdness with audio and I'm not certain which component to attribute it to.

The HTPC is connected to an Onkyo receiver via HDMI for both audio and video. The Onkyo is then connected to the television via HDMI for video only. This is about the most basic setup I can even imagine.

What I'm getting is whenever I play audio after any period of inactivity on the HTPC, whether it's 5 hours or 5 minutes, the audio takes a good 2 to 3 seconds to start playing. Say I pause a movie I'm in the middle of for a minute to grab a drink. When I come back and hit play the video begins immediately, but audio won't start for another few seconds.

What's going on here?
 
I would look at the video card driver on your HTPC. Does the receiver do this with any other source?
 
I had an old Kenwood years ago that would go into some sort of dumb standby when it didn't detect audio coming, and it would shut down. Once you started playing stuff again, you would hear it click back on.


Never heard of Onkyo doing something so stupid, i would be it's something in the PC.
 
I don't think it's the Onkyo. I just set up a home theater for a friend with an Onkyo and there is no delay when resuming audio.
 
I recently set up a new HTPC and I'm experiencing some weirdness with audio and I'm not certain which component to attribute it to.

The HTPC is connected to an Onkyo receiver via HDMI for both audio and video. The Onkyo is then connected to the television via HDMI for video only. This is about the most basic setup I can even imagine.

What I'm getting is whenever I play audio after any period of inactivity on the HTPC, whether it's 5 hours or 5 minutes, the audio takes a good 2 to 3 seconds to start playing. Say I pause a movie I'm in the middle of for a minute to grab a drink. When I come back and hit play the video begins immediately, but audio won't start for another few seconds.

What's going on here?

It's the handshake occurring between the HTPC and the receiver. It's more prominent with an ATI video card as opposed to nVidia in my experience. Same thing happens to me with my HTPC (ATI 6450)/Onkyo 606 setup.
 
Haven't had a chance to try another device with the receiver yet, but I plan to this week. For the record this HTPC is running a Sandy Bridge I3 with the integrated Intel GPU.

I guess if other devices do it the next thing to try would be optical to the receiver for audio and HDMI straight to the television for video. Seems like that could potentially cause syncing issues though.

What really gets me is how it happens even after a pause as short as 30 seconds. I can see it maybe going into a standby mode if it's getting no audio for an hour or something, but 30 seconds? Come on.
 
Update: I tried running my tablet through the receiver via HDMI and got the same delay on resume. I then tried hooking up my HTPC to the receiver via optical and again the same delay, though this time only in 2 channels.

It's clearly the receiver at this point. I went digging around the settings and found an auto standby option, but it was already set to off. I'm out of ideas at this point.
 
I have an Onkyo receiver and it does the same thing. However, it doesn't bother me as it is only a couple of seconds worth of delay. If I miss something I just rewind a bit and the problem is bypassed.
 
It's the handshake occurring between the HTPC and the receiver. It's more prominent with an ATI video card as opposed to nVidia in my experience. Same thing happens to me with my HTPC (ATI 6450)/Onkyo 606 setup.

Actually it's Nvidia cards that suffer from the silent stream bug. AMD cards haven't suffered this for a long time if you know what you're doing (you need to use the Realtek HDMI Audio driver). This was the reason why I dumped the GTX260s I had for HD4870s a couple of years ago and the fact that Nvidia cards couldn't bitstream DTS and True HD audio. Go check the AVS forums see if anyone is complaining about a silent stream bug on AMD hardware.
 
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I don't think it's Nvidia as I do not have this problem with my GTX 480 outputting to my Denon AVR.
 
Actually it's Nvidia cards that suffer from the silent stream bug. AMD cards haven't suffered this for a long time if you know what you're doing (you need to use the Realtek HDMI Audio driver). This was the reason why I dumped the GTX260s I had for HD4870s a couple of years ago and the fact that Nvidia cards couldn't bitstream DTS and True HD audio. Go check the AVS forums see if anyone is complaining about a silent stream bug on AMD hardware.

Still an issue for ATI owners. It's just not as annoying anymore (no loud pops).
 
Still an issue for ATI owners. It's just not as annoying anymore (no loud pops).

/shrug I had my 2 HTPCs hooked up to an Onkyo TX-SR309 and a TX-SR805 each, using 4870s before I replaced those with passively cooled 5450s and neither of them experienced the silent stream bug after installing the Realtek HDMI drivers. I used to use ATI anti pop with older drivers but that was fixed with 10.12 but I never used the catalyst HDMI audio driver anyways.

Also a GTX480 cannot bitstream DTS or Dolby True HD, all they can do is PCM so that account means very little. The only Nvidia cards that can but still suffer from the silent stream bug and loud pops are the GTX460 and GT430 IIRC.
 
I really don't think it's a GPU issue since it's happening on both my Intel HTPC and my tablet. Seems to be a receiver thing.
 
I don't know if it is a receiver thing...I have an Onkyo too...and on my 1st HTPC with AMD graphics, a pause in BD playback results in a second or 2 drop in audio...but on my second HTPC, with Intel HD graphics, which I am testing now, I get no lapse whatsoever in audio after a pause . I'm using PowerDVD11 Utlra on both boxes, Windows 7 64, WMC, and Media Browser, too. The CPUs are different, too.
 
I'm getting the lapse in audio even from RockPlayer (Android) on my tablet, same as from my HTPC running Intel HD.

I have some components coming in for a second HTPC build next week, one based on the AMD E350. I'll be interested to see if it has the same issue.
 
I could be that both AMD GPUs and yor Android tablet have the same problems. If I get motivated enough, I'll test on my Android tablet and my iPad (I don't generally use these to drive my TV).
 
Same issue with the AMD system. I'm ready to call it a receiver problem. Anyone else get this with their Onkyo receiver?
 
umm, so you are bitstreaming the audio op?

maybe try outputting multichannel pcm instead, and see if it still happens?
 
The receiver does this with one HTPC's Intel HD graphics, another HTPC's AMD Fusion-based graphics, and my Android tablet's Tegra2 via HDMI-out.

So the only way to keep the signal alive during pauses is by substituting XBMC's internal player for an external one it sounds like?
 
Actually it's Nvidia cards that suffer from the silent stream bug. AMD cards haven't suffered this for a long time if you know what you're doing (you need to use the Realtek HDMI Audio driver). This was the reason why I dumped the GTX260s I had for HD4870s a couple of years ago and the fact that Nvidia cards couldn't bitstream DTS and True HD audio. Go check the AVS forums see if anyone is complaining about a silent stream bug on AMD hardware.
Sorry for replying to an old thread but that fixed this issue 100%. Saved me from buying a new receiver.
 
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