Kona LHi and Xbox 360 HDMI audio issue

[Aaron Pulicano]

Hi,

The “horrid buzzing noise” could be the normal sound of AC3/DolbyDigital when there is no decoder present. Kona/Xena LHi accepts LPCM audio only (from what I understand). You said you tried setting everything LPCM audio, so that might not be the issue. Something else that could create this issue is that Xbox 360 uses no HDCP for games, DVD/HD-DVDs, however, have active HDCP. So that could also be why you are having problems.

Hope this helps.

[Arthur Dougherty]

Thanks for the reply. I had read about people experiencing dropped audio from XBox 360 DVDs over HDMI needing to establish HDCP after the dvd had started (usually by switching to another HDMI port, then coming back). Didn’t see a way to mimic that with the LHi. I can replicate the buzzing when I switch the Xbox to anything but plain digital stereo, so maybe there is a setting I’m missing somewhere. But all signs point to an HDCP issue that seems to have been introduced recently into my loop somehow.

Thanks again.

[Arthur Dougherty]

Thanks for the reply. I had read that the Xbox 360 had some troubles with the HDCP lock, so it wouldn’t surprise me if that’s the culprit. Just disappointed that it worked flawlessly for a while then shut down.

Anyway, thanks again for the response. Appreciate it.

[Aaron Pulicano]

Hi. Sure, no problem.
So you are only having problems with HDMI Xbox 360 using DVD movies though?
Games work without issue, right?

If you don’t mind, could you answer some questions for me?
I am interested in purchasing the Xena LHi (as I have PC).
Kona LHi/Xena LHi are the same specifications.

Have you tried doing any captures from the Xbox 360 over HDMI (gaming) when set to:

Reference Levels: Extended (0-255)
HDMI Color Space: RGB
Then setting the LHi to capture full range RGB

Are the color ranges correct? Is it free of black/white crush?
You might not be aware, but the LHi converts RGB to YUV then RGB on capture.
So I wanted know if full range RGB is captured correctly.

Also, have you tried any 4:4:4 RGB input sources?
Again, LHi converts 4:4:4 to 4:2:2 then back to 4:4:4 on capture.
So once more, wanted to see what kind of quality you encountered when inputting 4:4:4 RGB.

Visual Differences Between 444 (RGB) and 422 (YUV) Chroma: https://techblog.cineform.com/?p=315

[Arthur Dougherty]

Just did a quick check to see. When I went into the Xbox 360 settings to set these:

Reference Levels: Extended (0-255)
HDMI Color Space: RGB

And then changed the LHi Control Panel to:
LHi capture to full range RGB

What I saw was a general brightening of the image so that the deeper blacks changed to murky grays. I guess that would be more crushing the whites.

Not sure if we have any 4:4:4 sources. Will double check as soon as I can. Hopefully this gives you some of the info you were looking for. Thanks.

[Aaron Pulicano]

Thanks for checking into that.

But why would it be crushing whites and/or blacks if it the source is outputting full range RGB and the LHi is to capture full range RGB?
Is there another setting in the LHi control panel that might need to be adjusted?
If not, that is really disappointing.

Yeah, if you have any 4:4:4 sources, would really appreciate if you could let me know what kind of results you get when the LHi is set to capture at 4:4:4.

And if you don’t mind me asking, what kind of sources are you using you LHi with? Sources that are outputting YUV with 16-235 color ranges?

[Gary Adcock]

[Aaron Pulicano] “Sources that are outputting YUV with 16-235 color ranges?”

Aaron
if you are working in a SMPTE video space, those numbers are correct, as that is what most YUV content is recorded and played back within the SMPTE range.

Full range captures can cause issues with some codecs.

gary adcock
Studio37
HD & Film Consultation
Post and Production Workflows for the Digitally Inclined
Chicago, IL

https://blogs.creativecow.net/24640

https://library.creativecow.net/articles/adcock_gary/AJAIOHD.php

[Aaron Pulicano]

Hi Gary,

Correct, normally YUV 16-235 is for broadcast (TV) and RGB 0-255 is for web (Monitor). Games from HDMI sources like Xbox 360 for example (Playstation 3 and P.C as well) are all native full range RGB. The capture sources I will be working will almost all full range RGB, so correct capture of them is really important to me. According to the Xena LHi Specs, RGB should be supported, so why would Arthur’s test capture have white/black crushing (assuming you have worked with the LHi)?

Thanks

——————————————————————

XENA LHi Video Input Specifications:

Digital:

3G/HD/SD SDI, SMPTE-259/292/296
HD-SDI 1.5Gb and 3Gb

HDMI v1.3, 30/36 bits/pixel,
RGB or YUV, 2.25Gbs, SD,
HD, 1080p50/60

Analog:

SD and HD Input, BNC

HD: YPbPr, RGB
SD: YPbPr, RGB

(component mode) Composite/YC
(composite mode) 12-bit A/D

[Gary Adcock]

[Aaron Pulicano] “Games from HDMI sources like Xbox 360 for example (Playstation 3 and P.C as well) are all native full range RGB.”

That would not be my experience, how are you testing for Full range output?

Virtually nothing in the “video” world outputs in Full Range, in my experience full range content is only generated and used by the highend film facilities or those working in LOG space, so they can maintain the maximum. Even the default on your Kona Card is SMPTE not Full.

What are the HDMI settings in the Kona Control Panel tell you it is set to?
(this is also the reason I use a converter instead of the internal HDMI – then I do not need to worry about changes to the settings caused from software updates or format switching)

My tests using Leader and Tektronix scopes do not show a full range signal from WII or PS3, IMHO I doubt your Xbox is different.

gary adcock
Studio37
HD & Film Consultation
Post and Production Workflows for the Digitally Inclined
Chicago, IL

https://blogs.creativecow.net/24640

https://library.creativecow.net/articles/adcock_gary/AJAIOHD.php

[Aaron Pulicano]

Hi,

Well any current generation graphics card (like the AMD 5870 for example) only has native options to set 4:4:4 or 4:2:2 RGB output over HDMI. But in the case of 360/PS3, are you you set 360 to “extended” color range and PS3 to “full” color range?
limited/standard = 16-235 and extended/full = 0-255

I do not own the Xena LHi card yet (still thinking about it), so I can not tell you the available options on the Kona control panel. But Arthur owns the Kona LHi, so maybe he can reply with more information on that.

A quick search of Google will show that Xbox 360/PS3 games are all done in native full range RGB.
Just that both consoles feature the options to re-map them based on your individual needs.

For example, here is how the PS3 works over HDMI:

DVD/Blu-Ray Playback
YCbCr = 16 “standard color range for DVD/BR” 235
YCbCr + super-white = 0 BTB 16 standard color range for DVD/BR 235 WTW 255
Limited RGB = 16 “standard color range for DVD/BR” 235
Full RGB = 0 “re-mapped standard color range for DVD/BR” 255

Games/XMB
Full RGB = 0 “color range for 8-bit RGB per channel” 255
Limited RGB = 16 “re-mapped color range for 8-bit RGB per channel” 235