Any way to boost audio levels When using the Kodi Wrapper?

[Xeteskian]

Hi,

I'm using my Q10 to stream movies using Kodi and the Himedia player via the wrapper.  I find the wrapper gives a better image with less noticable frame skipping, but unfortunatley the sound seems quite low on a large portion of my video files.

I'm not using any audio recievers, simply plugging the Q10 directly into my TV's HDMI port which has stereo speakers.  For some files I have to ramp up the volume on my tv a few notches, but for others I have to put it so high that when I forget and switch it back to the satellite feed, it blasts sound all over the house.

I used to use an old laptop and Kodi to play my media, and when using the Kodi player There was an option to set the default audio db gain (is that the right terminology?) a few levels higher which would offset this effect somewhat (if I set it too high the sound would become distorted, but I found a sweetspot that worked really well).

I'm just wondering if theres any similar functionality for the audio in the himedia player.  I figure the quiet audio is most probably down to the audio codec that's used in the movie file  being 5.1 or 7.1 and some of the channels being ignored when coming out of my stereo?  Basically, I'm looking for any tricks to get the audio levels a little louder using the himedia player via the kodi wrapper without having to crank the tv level to 100.

Help appreciated
Xet

[madman]

hello,
i have the same issue, it's very annoying. i've discovered that when you set audio output to mono in himediaplayer, sound is slighty louder, but since it's mono that's obviously not a perfect solution. really himedia should fix that in their player (and many other things too).
best regards

[Mount81]

Hi,

I'm using my Q10 to stream movies using Kodi and the Himedia player via the wrapper.  I find the wrapper gives a better image with less noticable frame skipping, but unfortunatley the sound seems quite low on a large portion of my video files.

I'm not using any audio recievers, simply plugging the Q10 directly into my TV's HDMI port which has stereo speakers.  For some files I have to ramp up the volume on my tv a few notches, but for others I have to put it so high that when I forget and switch it back to the satellite feed, it blasts sound all over the house.

I used to use an old laptop and Kodi to play my media, and when using the Kodi player There was an option to set the default audio db gain (is that the right terminology?) a few levels higher which would offset this effect somewhat (if I set it too high the sound would become distorted, but I found a sweetspot that worked really well).

I'm just wondering if theres any similar functionality for the audio in the himedia player.  I figure the quiet audio is most probably down to the audio codec that's used in the movie file  being 5.1 or 7.1 and some of the channels being ignored when coming out of my stereo?  Basically, I'm looking for any tricks to get the audio levels a little louder using the himedia player via the kodi wrapper without having to crank the tv level to 100.

Help appreciated
Xet

The cheapest solution to this would be getting a cheap-but-fair stereo speaker set connected directly to the Himedia Box's analogue outputs. (I would personally recommend Genius SP-HF1250B or sp-hf1255b).  No more messing with the TV volume and you even get a fair quality improvement as well. Far from "multi channel high-end", but definitely better than any built-in TV speaker bluntness.  Tho' it will still vary from the source format, if you need sometimes lower or highten the  volume a bit, cause somehow the "untouched" native stereo sources sound much louder than any "downmixed" multi-channel ones... Set it on the speakers to the low-volume formats, and than just adjust anytime with the remote... This is how it works for me.

[futeko.com]

Isn't this just that audio volume is set at different levels in the files? I don't think this is a HiMedia problem..

[Mount81]

Isn't this just that audio volume is set at different levels in the files? I don't think this is a HiMedia problem..

Partially right. But in general the multi-channel formats (5.1, 7.1) usually have lower volume when output is 2.0 only, guess partly because the conversion/down-mixing. Most better media player softwares have some option to "normailize" the dynamic of the sound due downmixing and make it (mostly perceptible and useful in the  dialogs) a bit louder, adjusting it automaticly to 2.0 outputs (KODI does have it as well), that's whats missing from the HiPlayer.

But also even with different multichannel sources can the overall volume level be different. But the mostly perceptibel difference is between the multichannel    vs the 2.0 formats. Even a 192kbps stereo AC3 can be much louder, than a lossless 5.1 (when using the analogue/TV output at stereo).

[Xeteskian]

The cheapest solution to this would be getting a cheap-but-fair stereo speaker set connected directly to the Himedia Box's analogue outputs. (I would personally recommend Genius SP-HF1250B or sp-hf1255b).  No more messing with the TV volume and you even get a fair quality improvement as well. Far from "multi channel high-end", but definitely better than any built-in TV speaker bluntness.  Tho' it will still vary from the source format, if you need sometimes lower or highten the  volume a bit, cause somehow the "untouched" native stereo sources sound much louder than any "downmixed" multi-channel ones... Set it on the speakers to the low-volume formats, and than just adjust anytime with the remote... This is how it works for me.

Thanks for the reply.  By adding these speakers to the Analogue out of the Himedia Box, would that override the TV's output also, or would I be getting output from both?  The only issue I guess I have with this is that I'd have to get up and manually turn the volume up/down depending on the movie I'm watching - but that's just me being lazy.  It's a pitty there's no way to modify the HiMedia Player though

[Mount81]

The cheapest solution to this would be getting a cheap-but-fair stereo speaker set connected directly to the Himedia Box's analogue outputs. (I would personally recommend Genius SP-HF1250B or sp-hf1255b).  No more messing with the TV volume and you even get a fair quality improvement as well. Far from "multi channel high-end", but definitely better than any built-in TV speaker bluntness.  Tho' it will still vary from the source format, if you need sometimes lower or highten the  volume a bit, cause somehow the "untouched" native stereo sources sound much louder than any "downmixed" multi-channel ones... Set it on the speakers to the low-volume formats, and than just adjust anytime with the remote... This is how it works for me.

Thanks for the reply.  By adding these speakers to the Analogue out of the Himedia Box, would that override the TV's output also, or would I be getting output from both?  The only issue I guess I have with this is that I'd have to get up and manually turn the volume up/down depending on the movie I'm watching - but that's just me being lazy.  It's a pitty there's no way to modify the HiMedia Player though

You only need to set the HDMI and the SPDIF output to Close in the Himedia menu, and you will get the sound only from the speakers.