Volume control. 2CH Stereo vs Surround Sound

[dylanparker]

I'm having a problem controlling the volume and I wanted to see if this was an issue with Boxee or something inherent in my setup.

I find when watching a standard non-surround-sound video that I can control the volume with my standard mac remote.

But when watching a Surround-Sound video the volume control through Boxee doesn't have any effect and instead I have to use the volume control on my receiver.

I'd really love to be able to just use the single controller and have the volume control work in both situations.

Does anyone else experience this? Is it just something I need to accept?

I am using a Mac Mini feeding the audio via Optical to a SONY STR-DG720 receiver.

Any help is appreciated.

[skadeb87]

I tested mine out and I can also control the boxee volume when it is transmitting stereo, but NO volume changes happen when transmitting 5.1. This happens in VLC as well. When you are using an optical out the OS/software usually does NOT decode the audio. The dts, ac3, pcm, etc data is passed through your SPDIF allowing your receiver to decode the audio file. You are controlling the volume wherever it is being decoded. Most stereo stuff is encoded as mp3 which is decoded by the computer... allowing you to control the volume on the comp. If you want to adjust the volume on your comp I would look into a software decoder. ac3filter is a good one for windows. I'm not really sure what's available for OSX. Oh yea... There is usually some sort of "Allow SPDIF Passthrough" setting (I know there is one in VLC). Perhaps changing that could change the decode location thus allowing you change the volume using software. Just a suggestion... not sure if it will work.

[jyakimic]

my apple remote doesn't seem to control volume on anything (netflix, hulu, etc). I do get the graphic in the corner with the level animation, but the actual volume never changes.

[skadeb87]

my apple remote doesn't seem to control volume on anything (netflix, hulu, etc). I do get the graphic in the corner with the level animation, but the actual volume never changes.

What type of audio out are you using?