Callisto Vista beta drivers and sound drops.

Hi Darren,
What other software do you have installed on your htpc? It sounds like some program or service could be spiking the CPU and stopping the Callisto driver from outputting audio. Seems unlikely, but this is the first report we've had of this behavior.

The Callisto is fully compliant with the Dolby Digital Live spec, and was approved by Dolby as such. If your problems were caused by the Callisto breaking with the spec, you would be seeing the same problem on both AV receivers (assuming they are both fully compliant, of course!).

What happens when you try a 2 channel PCM signal from the Callisto's digital out?

-Aaron

PS. The DTS problems you heard about previously were not because of a break with the DTS spec. It was actually caused by a switching delay in the A/V receiver, which came up because Callisto must maintain compliance with the USB spec on standby power consumption.

Hi Aaron
Thanks for the fast reply.

Firstly it is reassuring to hear that the Callisto conforms fully to the DD Live spec.

Secondly, concerning my problem, i spent more time last night with my htpc system and my two different AV receivers/decoders. I have concentrated more on the HTPC since it is the simplest system, has the least software and hardware installed, is the easiest to reinstall, plus is the one i need working the most.

This system is a shuttle SB83g5m with a intel 915 chipset. It has a p4 3.2 ghz cpu with 1 gb ddr 400 memory and ati hd2400xt card, hauppauage notv-t 500 pci dual dvb tuner. Addiotnally, there is a usb readyboost drive, usb mce remote IR reciever, and a lcd front panel (also usb interface).I have installed lastest, bios, windows updates and all components are working with no probs.

As for software, it is nearly a vanilla vista installation with no other software other than the lastest drivers for the chipset, dvb and ati cards, and callisto, and itunes installed.

The sound skips do not seem to coincide with cpu or system process/services spikes. They also do not conincide with peaks in the volume mixer vdu bar although subjectively they may have decreasd in frequency when i reduced the overall system volume output. I have tried moving usb ports, and it is now the only device connected to a dual usb mainboard header, but it made no difference to the skips. The usb ports are working at full usb2 speed.

The system is not overlcocked and i have tried restoring the bios to the defaults although they are very few options to adjust anyway in the shuttle bios's. There is no option to adjust pci latency or other things which i know could affect data streasm across the north/south bridges.

As for the applications, the sound drops are similar irrepectively of wehther i play simply 128 - 256 kbit mp3/acc files or whether i'm watching live tv in mce which invokes the dvb tuners, usb front lcd panel and mce IR controller. I will try removing all these devices tonight.

This problem could be an isolated issue with my primary reciever, the yamaha dpp-1. However this was a very high class ($900) reciver when released and has been very robust with every other dd5.1 stream i've fed it. It does not accept pcm streams. As i said, my 2nd reciever functions fine with the callisto with both ac3 and pcm streams on the htpc system but has been crashing after several hours of use which is unusual.

Tonight i will the callisto on my wife's vista laptop since my old win xp p3 400 laptop did not seem powerful enough to run the callisto properly. The sound aslo broke up using that, but the sounds drops on this conincided with cpu spikes and the music player app freezing.

I can post/email screenshots, video recordings of the problem, and lists of my hardware and irqs ect on request.

thanks again for the help!
darren

Hi again Aaron
I've just been fiddling with my htpc some more.

Firstly to correct myself, the model of my main decoder is a yamaha ddp-2, not a ddp-1.
I've been hunting for more apps that could be interfering with the callisto fuctionality but not really find any likely culprits, and no proesses are spiking to explain the drop in sound. I also found that the analog output of the callisto is problem free.

This suggests that there is either a problem with the dd encoding or my reciever. I just tried some different optical cables and checked the reciever again with my xbox 360 and it worked fine. Therefore i'm stumped. I've still yet to try the calisto and reciever on my wife's vista pc and will do that later.

Any other comments/suggestions?

Thanks again for your help!

The fact that analog output is problem free is a good sign. If you haven't yet, definitely try disconnecting the other USB devices on the system and see if that helps the Callisto.

And it is certainly possible that the Callisto and ddp-2 are not seeing eye to eye, although I am assuming they are adhering to the same spec. I'm not familiar with the ddp-2- is there a way to update its firmware or reset it? I realize this is not possible with most AVRs, but thought it might be worth a mention.

I have the same problem, the sound drops randomly and periodically. It doesn't matter what output I choose. The pc is a 64x2 AMD Turion procesor running 32bit Vista Home Premium OS with 2 gigs of Ram and 2 gigs of Readyboost. No Virus software running, no network connection running and no applications except for Powerdvd to play my movies and mp3. There is CPU spikes at all. I have a DDL soundcard on my other desktop running XP SP2 and this problem doesn't exist. The AVR does have DTS and DD decorders and plays fine will all media I use.

Also as stated in another post, I am unable to select PCM, it reverts back to the previous selection. I am very familiar with the C-media audio chip and control panel since it is the same chip in the other desktop's soundcard.

Do you have any suggestions or updates to the Vista Driver to help fix this issue?

Hi misskimi,
Not sure what is causing this- try re-installing the driver maybe?

I'll check if there is a newer driver on the way.

I was able to fix this issue, I replaced the optical cable, although it was working fine with my other desktop, however I was still getting drops, it turns out the mini adapter supplied with the Callisto was defected, I replaced it with one I had and everything is working perfectly right now, no drops. The only thing I miss in the control panel (C-Media) with the vista version doen't have the ability to individual adjust the volume on each speaker when using 5.1 DD or DTS, this is available on the XP version control panel (C-Media). I hope C-Media includes this option when they finalize the Vista drivers.

Hi misskimi,
Ok, glad you managed to sort it out. The reason that the individual channel volume controls are not in the Callisto Control Panel is that they are now a part of Vista's Sound Control Panel. Per-channel volume control for all audio devices now needs to be made in that Control Panel, and it's not available for 3rd party drivers like it was in XP.

Hope that helps,
Aaron

Hi Misskimi,
It's been a while since i originally posted my problem with the sound drops on my vista system, but i regularly come back for any updates. Thnaks misskimi for your suggestion about the optical cable and i've just replaced mine, but to no avail. It looks like my dd5.1 decoder is the root of my problems and i will have a replacement coming next week. I'm glad to hear you problem is fixed and hope to report the same next week.

cheers

Hi
Just to report to anyone who has experienced the same problem. I have just replaced my yamaha dpp-1 dd5.1 reciever for a panasonic sa-he9, and can happily report that my callisto is now working perfectly well. Thus, it seems that all of my previous sound drops were due to my yamaha decoder not behaving properly.
Thank you Sondigo support and anyone else who provided feedback for my problem!

merry christmas for the UK!

Thanks for the update, dazzyp. These problems can be tough to debug, since they can originate on either end of the connection and it's hard to determine which one is at fault.

Hope you had a great Christmas, and enjoy your Callisto!