User

11.10.2007 07:46:37

Hi again Felix

I have noticed that, especially since the last update, when you're in EyeTV and have a TV window open, then activate Front Row, the EyeTV is muted (which is good) but there's also no sound in Front Row (which is bad).

Has anyone else had this problem, or is it just me? I'm using the digital optical output, so I was wondering whether there was maybe a problem with EyeTV handing over control of the digital optical output to Front Row? I haven't tested it with the analog out, since my analog out is busted.

I have got around it by defining an action that closes all EyeTV windows before activating Front Row, but ideally I would like to be able to leave the EyeTV window paused and open. I'm running the Mac as a home theatre PC and would like to avoid seeing the desktop as much as possible; I really like the way full-screen EyeTV just rotates straight into full-screen Front Row -- but it would be even better if the Front Row sound worked :)

Best 
PJC

User

11.10.2007 16:29:24

peterJcat - can you explain how you created the event to close the eyetv windows before entering frontrow? I am considering buying this software but would like to know how difficult this would be,

thanks much 

User

12.10.2007 22:02:01

Hi PJC,

I have no experince with digial audio out.

If Remote Buddy detects that Front Row is being started, it will mute 
EyeTV's audio. My understanding is - and that's true for at least my 
"analog" setup - EyeTV's volume is not identical with system volume.

Should, however, EyeTV's volume be identical with general system audio 
volume when using a digital audio out, this might well explain what 
you are seeing.

In general, Remote Buddy leaves the system volume level untouched 
unless you explicitely tell it to change it via either specific 
actions or the embedded volume controls. So, other than the 
speculation above, I'm out of ideas how this could be caused.

Best regards, 
Felix 

User

12.10.2007 22:08:01

Thanks for your interest.

Depending on how you want to switch to Front Row, this is not possible 
or rather easy.

The rather easy way:

If you want to switch to Front Row while EyeTV is in the foreground, 
create a custom action that: 
1) reuses the action of the EyeTV Behaviour to close all windows 
2) uses the action from the Front Row Behaviour to activate Front Row

Best regards, 
Felix 

User

15.10.2007 02:02:22

I've found the "Close All Windows" action of EyeTV to be a bit weird, actually -- when you have a window in full-screen mode and use "Close All Windows" it gives a black screen, no doubt due to EyeTV's screen blanking, and it's very hard to get the desktop back.

So what I did was (a) first define a custom EyeTV action to close a window with the cmd-W keystroke; and then (b) define a custom Front Row action that activates the EyeTV behaviour, then sends the custom close windows action a few times to make sure everything's closed, then uses the existing Activate/Deactivate Front Row action. It's a bit messy but it seems to work most of the time.

I've worked out that the audio loss problem isn't Remote Buddy's fault but is to do with the new version of EyeTV. The old one used to hand control of the digital out over to Front Row on activation; the new one doesn't. I'll get on to EyeTV about that.

Cheers 
PJC

User

18.07.2009 16:33:19

Sorry to recycle an old thread but it's the only one I see in search, and it's certainly the issue I'm having.

I am trialling Remote Buddy on a Mac mini with 10.5.7 and digital optical out for audio, and EyeTV 3.1.2 and Remote Buddy 1.12. I experience exactly the same issue - to go from EyeTV to Front Row, the sound is muted. This does not happen if EyeTV is quit first, and it doesn't happen if Remote Buddy isn't active.

Has anyone discovered a fix? 

User

19.07.2009 00:34:07

Interesting.

When in Front Row, can you change the volume? If yes, what was the 
volume level Front Row displays first?

(Sidenote: I don't have access to any digital audio equipment, so I 
have no way of testing myself. My above question is assuming Front Row 
has by now gained the ability to modify volume when using digital 
audio out.)

Best regards, 
Felix Schwarz 

User

19.07.2009 10:38:41

In answer, the up and down buttons show the volume change - which is at maximum. It cannot actually be changed with digital out.

Having played with it, I now know the setting which is a problem - in EyeTV, enabling Digital Optical Out, rather than System Sound. You need to enable Digital Optical Out to get 5.1 sound on the channels that have this, otherwise it is always two-channel. If however the audio output is set to System Sound there is no problem with the handover to Front Row using Remote Buddy (or if there's no playing EyeTV window of course). 

User

22.07.2009 21:02:44

 
 
Having played further, this also affects DVD Player. Remote Buddy and EyeTV and Digital Out seem not to play well together. 

User

22.11.2009 21:32:18

 
 
I wanted to give Remote Buddy another go as I am impressed by the fix you've put together for EyeTV with Candelair. (And unimpressed that it's necessary and not supported within EyeTV!) However, this same sound issue still seems to be a problem. No problem if it's a low priority but I am posting in case you have addressed this and I have set up incorrectly or sub-optimally. 

User

08.12.2009 10:31:32

The upcoming, next release of Remote Buddy allows you to turn off auto-muting of EyeTV when iTunes starts media playback or Front Row is activated.

Since what I guess happened is this ..

1) Front Row launches 
2) Remote Buddy sets EyeTV volume to zero 
3) EyeTV sets volume of the audio device to zero (=> and, I'm just guessing here, system volume and application volume seem to be identical for digital audio out)

... this should solve your problem.

You'll find that option at Prefs > Behaviours > EyeTV.

Best regards, 
Felix Schwarz 

User

13.12.2009 04:47:55

The problem is actually worse than it is being described here.

The required ingredients are: 
EyeTV - must be running 
Remote Buddy - must be running 
Digital sound output

If EyeTV and Remote buddy are both running there is no sound in Front Row or DVD Player. iTunes will not even play. A song can be selected but it will not play even without sound. Any of the play controls or double clicking in an iTunes list has no effect. This happens even if iTunes or DVD Player are being controlled with the conventional mouse and keyboard.

Quitting either EyeTV or Remote Buddy makes the problem go away immediately. Restarting them both brings it back, even if iTunes or DVD player has been kept running.

This is a real show-stopper for a media centre with EyeTV and Remote buddy.

Bill 

User

16.12.2009 16:07:41

All of that makes sense and is in line with what I guessed is the source of the problem.

Remote Buddy 1.16 is available now. Please try disabling EyeTV auto-mute at Prefs > Behaviours > EyeTV and let me know about your results.

Thanks in advance.

Best regards, 
Felix Schwarz 

User

17.12.2009 05:21:34

I would love to say that fixed the problem, but I am afraid it made no difference.

I now have Remote Buddy 1.16 EyeTV 3.3 and MacOS 10.6.2 and the behaviour is almost unchanged. The only perceivable difference seems to be with Remote Buddy shut down. Then the menu button will flip from Front Row to EyeTV and back. The new problem is that the EyeTV sound stays off when moving from Front Row to EyeTV. It obviously thinks it is still in the background. Moving from the silent EyeTV to the Finder or System Preferences and back revives the sound. The problems with Remote Buddy are unchanged.

Bill 

User

20.12.2009 16:14:46

Thanks for the info.

If auto-muting is turned off, Remote Buddy no longer has any direct or indirect influence on the audio output.

If Remote Buddy is quit, EyeTV handles the launching of Front Row. EyeTV may be having a special case handling with regards to audio in that case.

In contrast, when you launch Front Row via Remote Buddy, EyeTV doesn't know about this and may not perform any special handling that may be necessary on its own.

What you could try:

1) go to Prefs > Menu > EyeTV 
2) drag in Actions > Virtual Remote > Menu press, so you get a new menu item 
3) when in EyeTV, select that menu item from the Remote Buddy menu.

Best regards, 
Felix Schwarz 

User

20.12.2009 22:45:37

I have this same issue on my setup, only I work around it by simply closing all windows within EyeTV before switching to iTunes/Front Row/DVD Player, etc. Originally I was just switching apps (with the thought I would just leave all apps open and create a global app switch button similar to Command + Tab) but ran into this issue real quick. If you simply close all EyeTV windows, EyeTV should release the audio to the other apps. At least this is working for me on 10.5.8. 

User

22.12.2009 00:37:29

The extra menu item sort of helps a bit but it is still not right. It is also klugey. There is absolutely no intuitive reason to select a menu item called 'Virtual Menu press'

With it, I can move from EyeTV to Front Row and keep the sound and workability. The transition takes ages! Even worse, when I try to go back to EyeTV there is no sound.

If I sleep the computer and wake it up again, the sound comes back.Which sort of comes under the same heading as 'the close all the EyeTV windows before you change'. They are both nasty and unusable (for users who expect a media centre not a computer).

I notice that if the System sound is set to digital out, and EyeTV is set to 'System Sound Output' I get no sound from EyeTV. This seems to me to a bug in EyeTV

Bill 

User

12.07.2010 08:17:18

I have been away on Media Center (Windows) hoping that this issue would have been fixed by now....I just fired up the EYETV/FRONTROW combo and are you kidding??? The volume is still muted out if using digital sound/EYETV/RB and switching to FRONTROW.

Please tell me that there is something I have to download, or turn off? I use the Harmony1 and Apple silver remote so have sufficient tools to handle whatever is required. Losing digital sound is not an option, losing RB wouldn't bother me greatly if I can go back to press&hold the menu button to switch across.

Thanks in advance. 

User

12.07.2010 10:09:26

Remote Buddy is not and can't be the cause of your issue:

Remote Buddy does not access the audio system nor does it perform any audio operations/tasks or change any audio settings when you switch between EyeTV and Front Row. The option to auto-mute EyeTV (via AppleScript) when switching to Front Row has also been entirely removed from Remote Buddy for months now to remove any and all remaining confusion that this option seems to have created (=> therefore, please make sure that you're running the latest versions of EyeTV, Remote Buddy and OS X).

With no audio code and no audio operations being executed, and Remote Buddy doing nothing else but simply launching applications (like the Finder does), how could Remote Buddy have any influence or part in your audio issue?

From user reports, it appears to be the case that when you invoke "Front Row" through EyeTV (by pressing the "Menu" button - or - selecting the (in recent releases no longer existing) Front Row entry in EyeTV's menu), EyeTV stops playback and stops using digital audio, thereby making this system resource available to Front Row. And only after this, it invokes Front Row.

Whereas, when you don't invoke Front Row via EyeTV, f.ex. by launching the "Front Row.app" in /Applications in the Finder or Dock (or invoking Front Row via Remote Buddy, which does practically the same), it appears that EyeTV doesn't take any of the aforementioned actions - and you get the result you observe.

Therefore, you should be able to reproduce your issue easily. Just quit Remote Buddy (which is not actually necessary, but do it nonetheless simply to see that your issue occurs regardless of whether Remote Buddy is running), launch EyeTV, start playback of some TV channel or recording in EyeTV, then launch /Applications/Front Row.app using Finder or the Dock (important!).

As a temporary workaround, you may be able to invoke Front Row through EyeTV by using the "Menu button" action from Remote Buddy's "Virtual Remote" - f.ex. by selecting it for a button of your choice at Prefs > Mapping > EyeTV. This will send an emulated Apple Remote "Menu" button press event to EyeTV - and, if you're outside of any EyeTV onscreen menus, EyeTV will subsequently prepare for the invocation of Front Row - and subsequently invoke it for you.

For support on EyeTV, please contact Elgato's technical support ( http://support.elgato.com/index.php?_m=tickets&_a=submit ). They may already be aware of the issue and possibly be able to provide you with a solution simply by changing EyeTV's audio options.

- Felix Schwarz 

User

13.07.2010 02:00:11

Let me second this request.

RB does great stuff but this digital sound issue with EyeTV is a severe pain. It has not gone away the various 'fixes' suggested so far just don't work.

Could you talk to Elgato and get it sorted between you?

Please 
Bill Northcott

On 12/07/2010, at 4:17 PM, emma wrote:

User

13.07.2010 03:12:10

I shutdown RB, started it up again and set a global hotkey that press/hold menu button activates/de-activates Frontrow. This loses the sound when in Frontrow but....now when I activate Frontrow by RB using the "More" option then I now have sound as I should.

I will trial some more tonight by deactivating the hotkey and see if she holds steady. 

User

13.07.2010 08:14:11

Thank you for that extensive and helpful summary.

After spending some time on testing, I am persuaded that this issue with digital sound is primarily caused by deficiencies in Apple's sound APIs for handling digital sound, combined with some sub-optimal design in EyeTV.

If EyeTV is set to System Sound Output and the system sound output is digital, no sound comes from EyeTV. Setting EyeTV to Digital Sound restores sound output in EyeTV but disables sound output in all other applications as long as EyeTV is running. Further Apple's apps seem to aware that sound output is not available and refuse to try: eg iTunes will not play songs, and the alert sound selection in System Prefs is greyed out. As Felix wrote the only exception is when FrontRow is invoked from within EyeTV using the Menu button on and Apple IR remote. That is the only way any other app can output sound as long as EyeTV is running and set to digital out. It makes no differences whether or not EyeTV sound is muted when the app is backgrounded.

I will file bug reports/enhancement requests with both Elgato and Apple.

Thank you again for taking the time to explain the issue.

Bill

On 12/07/2010, at 6:09 PM, Felix wrote: