Resolved No audio with HDMI

I'm hoping someone can guide me in regard to setting-up a functioning HDMI connection between my PC and my TV.

Hitherto I've used an analogue (RGB) connection with sound piped from my soundcard's analogue line-out jack, but I'd been hoping to replace both with a single HDMI connection. My Asus EN210 graphics card has an HDMI jack and I have the necessary cable. Using this I'm able to get an excellent picture on my TV with 'HDMI' selected as input via its menu. But no sound. The direct connection from my soundcard to the TV's stereo inputs only functions when it's used in conjunction with the RGB connection from the PC.

NVidia's Control Panel applet says:- "your system is HDCP capable" - which is true so far as video is concerned but not audio.

There seems no question but that the EN210 does support audio over HDMI - or at least so I have been assured by Asus. But from what I have understood from posts in forums this ought to mean that the PC should detect that an HDMI audio device is present and ask to be told to install it. This has never happened since the EN210 was installed, nor does any HDMI audio device appear in 'Device Manager'. either with or without a yellow question-mark.

It has made no difference how I set-up on-board sound in the BIOS (the options are 'Enable', 'Disable' and 'Auto'). In fact, I don't even know from what source the audio for the HDMI connection is supposed to come - onboard audio or soundcard. I've not been able to find any Realtech driver specifically for HDMI so I assume no such thing exists.

In short I'm completely baffled by this and would welcome some fairly basic instruction, if someone would oblige.

 

Check your computer sound output device. It should be set to HDMI.

 

Hi rsinfo

Thanks for the prompt response.

Unfortunately, I've never been offered any such choice as you mention. The only options I get to select between are my sound-card and/or - depending on whether enabled or not in BIOS - onboard Realtech audio. That is if - as I assume - you're referring to 'Control Panel > Sounds and Audio Devices > Audio' tab?

I suspect the problem is up-stream from that:- my computer is failing to detect the presence of any HDMI audio device.

 

BIOS is not going to detect HDMI.

You have to check Control Panel->Sounds and Audio Devices->Output Devices. [if I remember correctly !]

 

Hi

Yeah that's my point. Sounds and Audio Devices does not provide the option to choose any HDMI device. It isn't being detected.

(I mentioned BIOS settings only for completeness' sake).

 

Does your TV work OK picture and sound when you have your DVD or BD connected and running, it could be the sound setting on your TV.

 

Hi hawk22

Yes, it works fine with DVD player (connected via scart).

What I can't understand is why the HDMI audio device which my Asus EN210 graphics card allegedly has onboard isn't being detected.

 

And this is where I suspect your problem lies, Scart is Analog HDMI is Digital, and your TV is set to recieve Analog Audio and not Digital.
Have read here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SCART

hawk22

If your DVD Player has a HDMI connector, try and connect your DVD player to your TV also via HDMI. This might help you, to set your TV to digital. Only using HDMI will make your cabling easier all round.

 

Hi,

Sorry, but I must beg to differ.

My TV isn't set to receive exclusively either analogue or digital - it will receive and display whichever is fed to it. With my graphics card's HDMI output connected to the TV's HDMI input, and with that input as the one selected in the TV's on-screen menu. a perfect (digital of course) picture is displayed.

The problem isn't with video but with audio. I ought in theory to be getting audio along with the video down the same cable, but I'm not. I'm hoping someone can help me to force my PC to detect the presence of the installed HDMI audio device, and then to pipe that audio down the HDMI connection to my TV along with the video.

When I bought the TV (and the HDMI cable) I assumed it would be just a simple matter of connecting the TV to the graphics card's HDMI output jack and that would be that. But it hasn't turned out that way and I'm baffled as to why not.

 

I have a Vizio and I have to choose which output that I want to use. Is yours the same? ie: HDMI 1, HDMI 2, VGA etc.

 

Yes, apart from what MrBill is saying, I don't know what other problems you might have, but unless you have set your Audio on the TV set to PCM you will not solve your problem.
I will leave it at that.

 

Hi

My TV is an LG, and from what you say, yes, it's exactly the same as yours.

Since up to now I've used an RGB connection for video, I've been selecting that in the TV's menu - which gets the video signal passed from my pc's graphics card's RGB output. The TV's RGB input connection (D-sub) is teamed with a mini-jack labelled 'Audio RGB/DVI', so by selecting 'RGB' in the menu I get audio as well. However, that audio connection is no longer enabled once I select anything other than 'RGB' in the TV's menu - such as 'HDMI'.

If I can find no way to get my PC to send audio down the HDMI cable I'll just have to revert to using two separate cables/connections. It's not the end of the world - just annoying, when I'm unable to understand why I'm not getting something I thought I'd paid for, or whether there's any way I can get it.

I'm beginning to suspect that this problem won't be solved before I upgrade my motherboard.

But thanks anyway for the help offered by all posters.

Edit:
Instead of "RGB" I should have put "VGA" (which is actually what appears in the LG's menu, just the same as in your Vizio's). Just to avoid any possible confusion

 

I'll add some techno-trivia.

PCM (pulse coded modulation) is the technical name for a whole set of uncompressed (raw) digital encodings. It is defined by three parameters:

Bits per sample
Channels
Sample frequency (samples per second, usually expressed in KHz)

A single sample can be thought of as the digital value of the measurement of the analogue sound as a voltage at a single moment. 16-bits allow values 0-65535. The more bits, the subtler the changes in frequency that can be encoded. The more samples, the finer the changes in frequency and the closer to the analogue waveform that the data represents. Together the more bits and higher sample rates allow more complex harmonics.

An analogue to digital (A/D) converter (ADC) turns the line voltage from a microphone into a value to create a single PCM sample. Taking many samples per second from two microphones creates a stereo PCM stream.

On playback a digital to analogue (D/A) converter (DAC) turns the value to a line voltage. Amplify it, and send it to a speaker and you have varying voltages moving a magnet in tandem with the frequencies, which moves air and creates sound at those frequencies.

The compact disc (CD) uses one particular PCM:

16-bit
Two channel (stereo)
44.1 KHz (44100 samples per channel per second)

LaserDisc Digital Audio used:

16-bit
Two channel
96 KHz

North America DVDs are required to carry a PCM track. And DVD players are requires to handle many variations. The main choices for this are:

16, 20 or 24-bit
One or two channels
48 Khz or 96 Khz


DVD-Audio uses PCM and/or DD (Dolby Digital). The PCM can have 1-8 channels. DD and other audio compression schemes are lossy. They
sacrifice some accuracy for the small size. Since DVD-Audio can use the entire storage space (4.7 or 8.5 gigabytes) for sound data, the very best sound will come from a DVD-Audio encoded at 24-bit/n channel/96 KHz PCM (where n is a matter for debate).
_

 

kosketus, reading through this topic on the Vista Forum might give you some points to investigate.
hawk22

http://www.vistax64.com/sound-audio/163611-no-sound-through-hdmi.html

and here:

http://wiki.xbmc.org/?title=HOW-TO_set_up_HDMI_audio_on_nVidia_GeForce_G210,_GT220,_or_GT240

 

I've concluded that the problem originates with my mobo.

It belongs to the generation when graphics cards were not yet configured with an integrated HDMI setup. At that time you could only get audio via the HDMI link by running a cable from a header (provided for the purpose) on the mobo to an input socket on your graphics card (if it had one!). My mobo has such a header and came accompanied with a cable specifically for making that connection.

But my graphics card belongs to the current generation with integrated audio functionality for HDMI, so it doesn't have - or need - any means to accept that connection from the mobo.

A hardware mismatch in other words.