47 replies to this topic

[DigitalMe]

Hopfully someone can help me out. Yesterday I installed XP SP2. Before I installed it everything was working fine with ZP 4. However after I installed SP2, whenever I watch an .avi movie with full AC3 sound, the movie will start with sound but if I pause, rw, or ff, I loose all sound. I then have to go back into the filters for zoomplayer - specifically AC3 Filter, uncheck SPDIFF passthru, then recheck it. Sound will then come back. However if I again ff, rw etc I loose all sound again.

Anyone have any ideas what's causing this?

[Blue]

Blight - this problem has happened with me as well, but not consistently. DigitalMe started a thread about it over at htpcnews. There's at least one other user over there having the same problem.

Microsoft will be pushing out SP2 via Automatic Updates. I suspect you'll be seeing more users with this problem as that happens.

Any idea what might be causing it?

Thanks...

[bLight]

Maybe unsafe code in AC3Filter... I'm unsure, it's beyond my control...

You can try disabling DEP for ZP:

Right-Click my computer, select properties, go to advanced tab, click on performance button, go to data execution prevention tab, set it to turn on for all programs except... then click add and add the zplayer.exe

Although ZP itself doesn't have any issues with this new SP2 feature, it's possible some filters may.

If this doens't help, it might be something with DirectX 9c... Maybe Valex (author of AC3 Filter) will pop back and post some fixes, who knows.

[DigitalMe]

Blight I did what you suggested and it didn't help. After making the change I rebooted and tested it out. Same problem occurs.

[bLight]

maybe you can add AC3Filter itself to the list... I'm not sure how WinXP SP2 controls this feature. It would probably be best if Valex (AC3Filter author) checked what's wrong, but he sort of disappeared.

[Blue]

I've been able to reproduce this problem consistently in ZP, now that I know what I'm doing. Firstly, it is not an AC3 Filter problem. I can reproduce the problem using any audio decoder (namely - Cinemaster, Intervideo, AC3, and nVidia). Secondly, the selected Audio Renderer in ZP seems to determine whether the Play/Pause or FF/RW commands cause audio loss (emphasis on "or"):

SoundMAX Digital Audio: FF/RW
Default DirectSound Device: Play/Pause
Default WaveOut Device: FF/RW
DirectSound: SoundMAX Digital Audio: Play/Pause

This explains why I couldn't consistently reproduce the problem before (as noted in previous post). Also, my MB has integrated SoundMAX audio, so my guess is that this may not be consistent with other sound devices. All of my tests were conducted while playing a DVD ("Angel", because I needed a reason to check out Charisma Carpenter).

Thirdly, I cannot reproduce this problem in WinDVD. So, if I pause or FF/RW in WinDVD, sound is maintained (using S/PDIF out).

Unfortunately, my third point leads me to believe that this is a ZP issue. I don't have other DVD software installed, but I'm assuming that if I tested using other software, I would get results consistent with WinDVD. I could be wrong, but logic would seem to dictate this is the case.

Sorry if this is bad news Blight...

Edit: I forgot to mention that the ffdshow filter was removed for all tests.

[Basje]

Hi Blue,

the WinDVD program uses its own internal Audio codecs, not the WinDVD filter you are using with ZP. This sounds odd, but if you search the forums you will find more posts that will tell you the same.

As for your conclusion: would rather say that the problem is the directshow filter support that changed with SP2, not ZP.

I know I did not solve your (or mine, I have the same) problem, but at least I am trying to pinpoint the source.

Groeten,

Bas

[midiboy]

Hi everyone,

I have to agree, there is some problem with sound and SP2. I have a Terratec DMX Fire 24/96 soundcard and I also use SPDIF out to my receiver, AC3 filter and Zoomplayer 4.03.

Even though I have had this problem for some time now I could not find any pattern behind it.

Sometimes, when Windows has run for some time ( days .. ) I simply get no audio through SPDIF when playing AC3. At this stage, analog audio still works but AC3 stays muted. Nothing I do at this time changes anything except rebooting Windows. AC3 is back then.

The other problem happens similar to what DigitalMe posted: Sometimes during a movie with AC3 sound, audio will switch to loud static noise or simply disappear. This can be "solved" by switching between Audio and NonAudio mode in the Terratec control panel. However, usually the audio disappears again after a few minutes.

Contrary to DigitalMe´s problem, this also appears without fast forwarding, it also happens randomly and not all the time which makes it very hard to find any pattern at all. I checked the usual suspects: MS messenger, Windows firewall, power management ... they are all disabled.

I initially suspected the soundcard drivers so I wrote Terratec weeks ago. They said they will do some longtime tests with SP2 but have not been able to reproduce the problem yet ...

midiboy

[Blue]

It's both good and unfortunate to know others are having the same problem. In another thread DigitalMe suggested it might be a SoundMAX specific problem, but it looks like that's not the case. He apparently was able to solve the problem (maybe?) by doing a complete reinstall of Windows XP and SP2, without installing the AC3 Filter. Since my XP load is fairly new, I will probably try uninstalling the AC3 Filter and restore the ZP settings to default.

Thanks for the input Bas and midiboy...

[Blue]

Just FYI - uninstalling the AC3 Filter and restoring the ZP default settings did not solve the problem.

[Blue]

More info...

I figured out how to reproduce this problem in WinDVD, but only by changing the Audio Renderer from Auto to Direct Sound. After changing this setting, Pausing results in loss of audio and FF/RW restores it.

[midiboy]

Hi everyone,

I have heared rumours that some older network card drivers cause those audio problems with SP2.

I have just reinstalled Windows with SP2 completely and deactivated the onboard 3COM NIC since 3COM has not updated their drivers for more than a year now.

Instead I reinstalled my old Realtek 8139C NIC. Realtek has posted new drivers specifically for SP2 a few days ago so I will watch if those audio problems are gonna reappear now.

Cannot tell yet because sometimes it took days for those audio problems to arise but I wanted to nevertheless post this so you could maybe experiment on your own ....

Bye,
Alex

[midiboy]

Hi !


Unfortunately I am having lots of network problems with this old Realtek card. Completely forgot about why I dumped it long time ago ...

Since I very much rely on a working network connection I cannot continue testing this. Maybe someone else who has those audio problems can try without any network connection or with a different card etc.

Could very much be a dead end but who knows ....

Bye,
Alex

[midiboy]

Hi !

Well, I have managed to solve the network problems with the Realtek card so I am back in business !

Here´s someone else with a similar problem by the way:

MSFN thread

Bye,
Alex

[grembert]

I'm a new user of ZP and this is my first post to this forum. Hope it all goes where it's supposed to.

I also had problems with audio as noted in earlier posts after installing SP2. I finally just uninstalled SP2 and things returned to normal, or so I thought.

Now I get no audio with ZP until I go into Control Panel, Sounds & Audio Devices, and clicking just about anything. Then the audio pops right back in and will continue until I stop the DVD, then again no audio. Back into Control Panel, S&A Devices, and it will pop back. Pausing play does not cause a loss of audio.

This problem does not occur with both WinDVD or Sonic Cinemaster. My audio is the onboard Soundmax with the lastest drivers installed. SPDIF to external processor. Oh yes, the audio does begin properly through the earphones, so it's only the SPDIF that appears to be the problem.

Hope some of this might be helpful. And looking for a solution.

Thanks.

[midiboy]

Hi again,


maybe we should all concentrate on what we have in common. Seemingly many of us use the Asus P4P800 board or a similar one ? Do we all use the onboard 3COM LAN ?

I mentioned in an earlier post that I managed to get my old Realtek card to work with the latest drivers instead of using the onboard LAN. That was 4 days ago.

Curiously enough during those 4 days the SPDIF audio problem has not happend anymore. I also installed the cfosSpeed network driver which optimizes the network and so far everything works fine.

Could someone of you test either with network disabled or with another NIC instead of the onboard 3COM NIC ?

Oh yes, the audio does begin properly through the earphones, so it's only the SPDIF that appears to be the problem.

That was the same on my system before changing NIC´s.

I still cannot be completely sure that this is related to the nic or it´s drivers because sometimes the error did not surface for a lengthy time but 4 days without a problem looks promising ....

Bye,
Alex

[grembert]

Replying to Alex, my MB is Asus P4PE and LAN is disabled, so LAN is not causing my problem.

I have managed to get DVD's with AC3 audio to work normally in all the audio filters I have installed by cycling through them. Using Cyberlink PowerDVD, the audio began to work normally. Now, all audio filters are working. There is one exception and that is a DVD with audio in PCM format as opposed to AC3 (that's the format I usually to make my own DVD's). In this case. I still have to go into Control Panel and click advanced for it to work. No changes are necessary. After stopping, I must go through this step again.

So that's some progress. Hope it holds.

george

[JTAnderson]

I've been able to reproduce this problem consistently in ZP, now that I know what I'm doing.  Firstly, it is not an AC3 Filter problem.  I can reproduce the problem using any audio decoder (namely - Cinemaster, Intervideo, AC3, and nVidia).  Secondly, the selected Audio Renderer in ZP seems to determine whether the Play/Pause or FF/RW commands cause audio loss (emphasis on "or"):

SoundMAX Digital Audio: FF/RW
Default DirectSound Device: Play/Pause
Default WaveOut Device: FF/RW
DirectSound: SoundMAX Digital Audio: Play/Pause

This explains why I couldn't consistently reproduce the problem before (as noted in previous post).  Also, my MB has integrated SoundMAX audio, so my guess is that this may not be consistent with other sound devices.  All of my tests were conducted while playing a DVD ("Angel", because I needed a reason to check out Charisma Carpenter). 

Thirdly, I cannot reproduce this problem in WinDVD.  So, if I pause or FF/RW in WinDVD, sound is maintained (using S/PDIF out).

Unfortunately, my third point leads me to believe that this is a ZP issue.  I don't have other DVD software installed, but I'm assuming that if I tested using other software, I would get results consistent with WinDVD.  I could be wrong, but logic would seem to dictate this is the case.

Sorry if this is bad news Blight...

Edit: I forgot to mention that the ffdshow filter was removed for all tests.

Blue's description pretty much, if not exactly, describes the problem that I'm seeing too. I have a similar system, ASUS P4C800 Deluxe with SoundMAX onboard audio. Windows XP SP2. I mainly use WinDVD 6 video decoder and AC3Filter as the audio decoder, but have tried various combinations including PowerDVD and AC3Filter. As Blue stated, the problem appears to be more related to the audio renderer. I didn't connect this problem with the installation of SP2, as I had seen it quite a while back, but had somehow resolved it. Now, it's back again with a vengance. It may very well have re-appeared when I installed SP2.

Stop and then Play seems to usually restore the audio (if I'm not using ReClock). Thank god for DVD bookmarks. But this whole issue takes a lot of the pleasure out of using an HTPC to play DVDs.

Like Blue, I did not see the problem using WinDVD 6 as the front-end. But, I really don't want to have to use the WinDVD front-end.

Please, Blight, HELP!

[JTAnderson]

I think I may have just remembered something that may be important in solving this problem.

About a year ago, I tried the TheaterTek DVD player. At the time, they were distributing and installing a Windows hotfix, the purpose and ID of which I don't remember. I decided not to keep TheaterTek, but when I uninstalled TheaterTek, it did not remove the hotfix.

Soon after that, I noticed this problem. I think it was someone on the AVScience forum who discovered it was due to this hotfix that TheaterTek installed. I removed the hotfix and the audio problem went away.

I'll bet that hotfix was incorporated into SP2, and that's why the problem has reappeared.

(For those of you who don't know, a "hotfix" is a patch that Microsoft provides only to users experiencing a particular problem. It's something they don't think is ready for, or sufficiently important for, general release on Windows Update.)

[JTAnderson]

FWIW, this is the hotfix that caused the problem before:

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?...kb;en-us;813347

This is specific to SoundMAX audio. If you don't have SoundMAX audio and are experiencing this audio loss problem, it may very well be a different issue.