HDMI audio drops immediately after music/sound ends.

hippoposthumous

I'm having an unusual intermittent audio problem, that I haven't seen anyone else with on a search. This is my setup:

Brand new (today) 3b in kit form, with included 5v .5amp power supply. I've tried another 1v .5 amp supply with no change.
Retropie 4.1, which I updated using update all packages tool.
Selected HDMI out in options, and forced it in the config file (after encountering issue).
Connected is a USB keyboard, an Xbox One S controller through USB, and a thumb drive with roms.

I set up using this guide:
https://github.com/RetroPie/RetroPie-Setup/wiki/First-Installation

Everything went fine, and audio worked on an external speaker using a stereo cable.

I moved the RP to the TV. My TV is a 2016 (sorry I don't have the model) Samsung LED 4k Quantum Dot TV. It uses a breakout box for all connections. The breakout box has 5 HDMI ports. I tried all of them. The breakout box outputs to an optical cable directly to the soundbar, which is a Martin Logan VisionX.

Ok. Now there is no sound in the menu system, where you select games... until I hold down the arrow and it scrolls fast. Then I hear the 'tick tick tick tick' as it scrolls through the games. When I stop, no audio. When I go one-at-a-time, no audio. Hold it down... nothing, then it comes on until I let go.

Launching any game, if there is a lot of sound and music, it's steady and sounds great (though there is a delay until the audio first comes on; a note or two). But if there is intermittent sound (like an atari game), the sound drops in and out (mostly out) until there is a a frequent sound.

Unfortunately I'm mostly lay when it comes to this stuff, but it seems to me that the HDMI handshake is dropping immediately when sound ends for some reason, then re-establishing a connection. I tried another HDMI cable (the one for my TV), same problem. I tried 'boosting' the signal in the config all the way to 6. No change. I tried changing the settings on the TV (which control the breakout box output to the optical... which I guess wouldn't help) from PCM to each of the other options. No change at all.

Is there a way to get my RP to output a signal that my TV might play better with? Am I on the right track?

Thanks so much!

hippoposthumous

SOLVED: Setting PCM to bitstream on both the TV and Soundbar gives steady audio. This is odd, since it's the opposite for the Xbox.

edmaul69

@hippoposthumous glad you got it working. Your post confuses me though. First you say the power supply is 5v .5a. Then you say you tried a 1v .5a power supply. The pi 3 requires a 5v 2.5a power supply. What does the power supply say on it?

hippoposthumous

@edmaul69 Ugh, sorry about the typos. Power supply is definitely 5v 2.5a (included in my RP kit) I also tried another 5v 5a supply, and the USB connection on the breakout box which is 5v 1a and actually works fine (though I use the kit supply in the permanent installation).

If anything downstream of the PI is PCM rather than Bitstream, it causes problems, so if anyone finds this in a search, make sure that your TV and audio system are all set to Bitstream.