Bump sounds

Hi Peter,
Which output mode are you using with the Callisto (Dolby Digital, DTS, PCM)? What are you using for a receiver/decoder? Do you have any previous USB audio drivers installed on your system?

This is likely a different issue than the one reported (and resolved) with the Inferno.

Thanks,
Aaron

I use the DTS mode connected to a Sony STR-DE 875 AV Amp.

I re-built my MCE 2005 not too long ago and it has only ever had the Callisto audio drivers installed (and Hauppauge Nvidia and ati drivers etc etc).

I will try it running off my laptop later and see if it suffers the same issue.

Hi Peter,
What you are probably hearing is the sound of your AV receiver switching in and out of DTS decoding. Because of USB compliance issues, the Callisto doesn't stay in DTS mode continuously when it's selected. It only enters DTS mode when a sound is being played. Thus, the "bump" you hear is your receiver switching into DTS mode in the middle of a short sound sample.

You can disable the sounds that happen when browsing in Explorer by modifying your Sounds theme:
- Open Start > Control Panel > Sounds and Audio Devices
- Select the Sounds tab
- In the list under Program Events, scroll down and select "Start Navigation" (it will be under Windows Explorer)
- In the Sounds pull-down menu, choose "(None)" instead of "Windows XP Start.wav" (or whatever else is selected)
- Click "Apply"

There will probably be other sound clips on your MCE2005 PC, which correspond to the skipping controls in Media Center. By disabling these sounds as well, you won't get the bump when using those controls.

Hope this helps,
Aaron

Hi Aaron,

My Sony amp is very clean at switching into DD or DTS, so I have been off hacking around with various drivers that I have found lying around the web and have finaly fixed the Bump with a mix of driver components.

It would therefore appear to be a driver issue. I removed all trace of c-media drivers from my system including registry and re-installed the Callisto drivers and the issue was still there. Once the bump noise has happened I also noted that the Volume bar graph level meter in the control panel would max out permanently and the sound would become gritty.

The driver I used was for AP-5.1 found @ http://www.gembird.de/_new_gem/driver.php

I used the file cmudaxu.sys which claims to be the same version as yours.

The DTS interactive codec version is newer (1.0.1) but doesn't work with the Callisto so I am using the Dolby Digital option with Neo and the sound is great!!

I would much rather be using Callisto drivers any ideas Aaron.

Best regards

PM

Hi Peter,
I'm glad you found something that fixes your issue, but I'm still not sure what was causing it in the first place. If the two cmudaxu.sys files are the same version and the same size, there is a 99% chance that they are the same file. I'm not sure why there is different behavior, but I'm willing to bet that it's something caused by the installer. It's quite possible that the installer is interacting with your machine in some less-than-ideal way, and these can be very difficult problems to debug.

In short, if you are enjoying the results of the current driver configuration, I'd recommend that you stick with it for now.

I also gave that file a try and it worked for me too.

No clicking/bumping thounds within FEAR no more, no "bad pool header" bluescreens within Guild Wars, no Soundsquishing while "hardware sound" is activated within Battlefield. But no surround sound either within alle of those games.

Surround sound still works for Counter Strike Source, Call of Duty and a few others.

It is very interesting. Within FEAR the "Hardware Sound" option is greyed out and i get no surround, but the clicking is gone. Disabling "Hardware Sound" with the original drivers did not do the trick.

I checked those two files. They are not identical. (used linux cmp command)

Now we will see how good the product realy is, that we bought.

I'm happy to hear it's not just me. And the file is clearly not the same because the DTS interactive is a newer version to that in the callisto driver and the user interface is slightly different.

I assume you can't enable DTS interactive either after this driver mod ?

It's a shame about the c-media Hydrogen driver development as this may have resulted in top class audio.

maybe this will be fixed when Vista drivers emerge.

regards

PM

P.S. Anybody else have this issue? pls post

I'm not familiar with the driver in question, so I'm not sure if it's possible to enable DTS Interactive from it. If it's not available initially, then I'd guess probably not.

Just out of curiosity, are you planning on moving to Vista?

I'm registered as a Microsoft development partner and as such I have had Vista RTM for some time now and would like to run it up on my Media Centre computer. I have drivers for everything but the Callisto.

So I am holding off for now.

I would appreciate if you could chase up your contacts at c-media and see if there are any release dates. I know they are due to release Vista drivers for a few of the PCI cards but I'm not sure how difficult it is to port them across to USB.

Cheers !!

I've been chasing for a while- I won't give up now!

Has anyone tried the xp drivers on Vista?

Hi,

Finally got my Callisto.

So far I really like it. When it comes to music/movies, the callisto beats every card I ever had hands down and even my previous favorite chipset for music, the nvidia onboard soundstorm (DDL).

Two small issues though;

1) There is a very loud, distorted, annoying "bump" sound when audio output kicks in. While it can be tolerated with music, it's simply a pain when dealing with instant messengers and any other notification sounds.

For example, every time I get a PM there's a bump sound instead of the actual incoming message sound. I'm assuming that this is because the sound sample played for PMs is very short; by the time the Callisto kicks in, the sound has already finished playing, so there's only the "audio on" disgusting bump sound, immediately followed by another one since there's no more audio to play so it goes "audio off" right after. Note that the DTS light stays on constantly on my Kenwood KRF-V7050D receiver, even if there's no sound playing.

I've read on this thread that some people were able to get rid of it by using a 3rd party .sys file, but according to them, it only works in DDL and it makes DTSconnect unavailable.

Now, I got the Callisto purely for DTS connect. I already had DDL before. If there's a way that we could force the driver to avoid constantly switching the audio output off/on and just output a continuous stream even if there are no active channels, it would be great.

2) Sometimes (like once every few days so far), the sound gets garbled when I start playing a song. I have to switch the output to DDL, then back to DTS to fix it. While it's only a minor issue, I hope there's an easy workaround for it or that it will be fixed in future driver versions. Is someone even working on improving the current drivers, cause from what I gather, C-media have abandoned the hydrogen chip project.

Thanks for your time,

Keno

Try this. open the callisto mixer, drag down the sliders for synth and cd (to zero) also mute (grey out the button under the sliders) re-boot XP.

Its a bit of a random problem almost like feedback across the channels. It may not work for you I have tried all ways to solve the problem.

If Aaron has any other old drivers lying around I would like to have a try of them.(in the absence of any new ones)

cmudaxu.sys seems to be the culprit. The one on the cd is very different to others I have found even though the version numbers are the same (hex edit shows almost all the code is different.
Also the DTS version is newer in the other drivers.

I also found some beta c-media usb Vista drivers on my travels, I might give them a try on Vista next week and see if they work with the Callisto (any sign of some sondigo Vista drivers Aaron?)

Hi Peter,
Good news- I've just received a new Vista build for the Nitrogen D2. We'll be testing it for a day or two, and if it's ready, we'll release it very soon.

If there's going to be a wait until a suitable Vista driver is ready, I'll see if I can dig out an older XP driver for you.

Still the same bumps. Thanks though.

I wonder what's the rationale behind having it stop and restart the DTS stream every time instead of just outputting silence constantly.

Gotta hate it when dll or sys files appear to be the same version, yet they are completely different when you diff them.

So does DTSconnect still work with the alternative cmudaxu.sys? Any other suggestion? Aaron?

Thanks!
Keno

Hi Aaron,

I finaly bit the bullet and went Vista this weekend (Home Premium Edition) and have all the media center stuff working with my Satellite box etc. Obviously the Callisto only works in stereo with the defaul MS driver so the news of a Vista base driver is great!!

God speed to you with the conversion!!

Re. Keno and bump - DTSconnect won't work but the DTSlive is still excellent (given the original low bitrate of the source material i.e.mp3) and not having the bump is worth the effort. DTS Neo works fine and any DTS or ac3 will pass through anyway untouched to your amp.

Just swap the file out in the installer and install over the top of you current version. Its easily reversed by just re-installing the driver off the cd.

Be brave give it a whirl

Regards

PM

Hi Peter,

I was under the impression that DTSconnect was the name of the entire DTS realtime encoding technology for the PC licensed from DTS Inc, kinda like Dolby Digital Live and Dolby. Now you got me all confused :), I'm not sure what you mean by saying DTSconnect doesn't work while DTSLive and DTS:NeoPC do. No idea what DTSlive is or how DTS:NeoPC can work while DTSconnect doesn't, I figured DTS:NeoPC was a DSP mode of DTSconnect.

*shakes head quickly*

What I basically need is the realtime DTS upmixing encoder w/ DTS:NeoPC DSP sometimes. If the sys file you have doesn't break any of that functionality, then I'd be grateful if you'd email it to keno2000@gmail.com. Also, must I swap it and reinstall the driver? Can't I just overwrite it in system32\drivers and reboot?

Thanks again,

Keno

PS
Off topic a bit, but is the vista driver about to be released for Vista 32bit or 64bit?

Sry to mislead Keno. I installed Vista and obviously can't get to the menu anymore to see what the options where called.

Dolby Digital Live works great (no bump and full upmixing via SPDIF to amp) DTS:NeoPC DSP works fine but the DTS upmix just gives you silence. So if you can live with Dolby Digital and DTS:NeoPC your sorted !!

If not then ask Aaron for some of the other assorted drivers has lying around and see if they fix the problem.

I'll have a rummage and send the file I was using, you can swap the file out but XP sometimes swaps it back to the old one. so popping it into the callisto installer works best. (just copy the drivers to ur HDD and replace the file in the driver folder then install as normal).

Regards

Good news and bad news...

Bad news is that the Vista driver is not ready. It's missing quite a few things and it looks like we'll have to wait till the next release.

Good news is that I found an older XP driver that might help with some of the issues mentioned in the thread. You can find it here

As for why the driver doesn't output DTS continuously, it's because doing so would cause Callisto to break USB standard requirements for power consumption in standby mode. I'm guessing that receiver switching time is longer for DTS than for DDL, which is why people are only noticing a problem with the former.

Hi Aaron,

Thanks for getting our hopes up ;). I'm getting pretty frustrated with C-media as I'm sure you are as well. They seem to be afraid or unwilling to even post on their own forums with any news about Vista compatible drivers. It is promising that you have received something from them even if it was incomplete. Sorry if I sound like I'm ranting.

I've tried everything. I've searched for other products that use C-media chips, I've tried using XP drivers, anything you can think of I've tried. And still waiting. Nearly 4 months since Vista has been publicly released.

All I need is someway to pass DD through (Spdif) the Callisto to my Logitech speaker system which then processes sound.

If anybody has any luck getting Vista and Callisto to use some driver other than the 2 channel stock Windows driver, please let us know. I've tried using the above mentioned XP driver but I can't find any way to force Vista to use it. I've tried uninstalling the Callisto and then not allowing Vista to install the stock driver then pointing it to the XP set mentioned above, but keep getting "not compatible" errors.

Oh well, the wait continues.

Aaron, thanks for keeping us informed, your dedication is greatly appreciated.

-Hack-

Hi Hack,
I don't think you'll be able to get the XP driver working under Vista, there is some fundamental incompatibility that can't be resolved apparently.

The good news is that the Vista driver should be right around the corner. I'm in contact with C-Media about it and the ball is rolling much faster now.

-Aaron

PS In C-Media's defense, they are a chip company, not a consumer product company (like Sondigo is). Since they don't sell directly to people like you and I, they're not "on the hook" for that support. My understanding is that the C-Media forums are intended for user-to-user discussion, although it certainly would be nice for all of us if they were more active there.

Hurrah!!!

No Bump in Vista !!

We need something new to harrass Aaron about.Hmmmm!!!

Hey Aaron what happened to Hydrogen??

Just kidding.

Drivers work sweet so far.

Pete

Hey Peter, that's great!
Wish I could help you with Hydrogen ;^)

Hi Aaron,

I have switched back to XP due to poor performance with Vista media Center Live TV.

So I'm back to the bump caused by the XP drivers.

I tried the older drivers that you posted a link to, this fixes the bump issue but breaks DTS Interactive.

i.e. DTS interactive has no output at all.

cmudaxu.sys shows a newer revision of DTS interactive but apears to be disabled. Is this something Sondigo can fix or are we at the hands of C-media (and therefore doomed.)

It's the only fault with the callisto but a major one!!!

Regards

PM

I must admit that we are at the mercy of our chip supplier for getting a base driver. I can put in another request, but they are generally reluctant to commit resources to a new driver when the existing one is pretty solid.

Did you try the Vista driver on XP? I don't think it is compatible with XP, but it might be worth a try (shouldn't break anything, at least).

It's a shame the older driver didn't fully work as the the bump noise isn't there at all in the DD Live. If only the DTS Interactive was working. I bet it's just one digit out in the code to enable to.

So frustrating.

PM

Let's hope Microsoft sorts out Vista Performance soon

Just got the Vista driver to work.

If you select SPDIF and DTS Interactive and Neo and don't touch anything else it works.

If you touch anything else it immediatly Blue Screens.

But the sound is much better and so far no bump!!!

PM

Hey, that's great!
I wasn't sure if it would work, but it's good to hear that it did!
-Aaron

Playing Mp3's works fine, but when changing channels on Live TV it screws up, with the audio and video totaly out of sync and eventualy ending in a crash.

Ho Hum !!

Do you have any information from the crash?
(I thought the Vista driver working wonderfully in XP might have been too good to be true)

I recently purchased the Sondigo Callisto, as it's features seem to fit in well with the setup I wanted to build.
My setup is as follows:
-Windows XP Pro, fully updated
-Sondigo Callisto
-Pioneer HTS-GS1 (supports both Dolby and DTS)
-I've pretty much done all of these experiments in Dolby Digital Live mode
-Griffin Powermate (multifunction USB knob, used to adjust volume)

However I am getting the same popping or 'bump' noise that others are getting when a sound (usually .wav files) starts and stops, the effect of which typically cuts of the beginning of the first sound (if there is a succession of sounds). Also, when adjusting the noise level in windows, both by software slider and Griffin Powermate, there is a hiss and whine sound corresponding to the adjustment. Overall however, when there is continuous sound, such as in a game, there is no pops or bumps, until my instant messenger program receives a message, and then there they are again. I started all of this with the drivers that come on the CD with the product, which just happen to be the latest drivers (060428_v1_0) I've read through this thread and tried a few of the various solutions:

1. First I tried the alternative driver that is linked here:
http://www.gembird.de/_new_gem/driver.php
However this is currently a dead link.

2. Then I tried the older driver posted by Aaron here, . It reduces the pop when playing audio files and seems to eliminate the hiss when adjusting the volume, but unfortunately, when I install that driver set I do not get the utility that comes with the latest driver. Without that utility, as far as I know, I can't activate useful features like DTS Neo:PC. In addition, the system is no longer spitting out a DTS or Dolby signal, or at the very least, my stereo doesn't recognize one, when I attempt this method.

An aside: Every time I install a different driver for the Callisto, I have to completely reinstall driver the Griffin Powermate in order for it to function. Not an major issue, but just something to note.