[raymondjpg]

I had another go at setting MPC-HC 1.8.4 as the external player in Emby Theater, this time with the Exclusive mode checkbox selected under Audio Renderer.

1. With audio output set to Default DirectSound Device, behaviour as before. Sound does not survive madVR refresh rate changing.

2. With audio output set to Internal Audio Renderer, sound does survive madVR refresh rate changing. However, it appears that AC3Filter's automatic association with post-processing MPC-HC sound is lost because stereo PCM (now received at the Yamaha receiver as stereo) was not transcoded to AC3. This would not matter too much if the only PCM we wanted to transcode was stereo. I think it might matter more if we wished to transcode multi-channel PCM.

3. Setting AC3 Filter as a preferred External Filter in MPC-HC, E-AC3 (at least) appeared to be decoded to PCM i.e. no longer bitstreaming as desired.

It may be that I have just not found the correct combination of settings. I may try again, but for now I have returned to PotPlayer and external LAV filters.

Edit: On closer scrutiny, it appears that AC3Filter's automatic association with post-processing MPC-HC sound is NOT lost when audio output set to Internal Audio Renderer, and after madVR refresh rate changing. However, the audio delivered to the AV receiver is PCM sound until video play is stopped then started again. Same with E-AC3. After madVR refresh rate changing, the audio delivered to the AV receiver is PCM sound until video play is stopped then started again.

This is not as bad as no audio after refresh rate changing, but I would still prefer to see the correct audio format delivered to the AV receiver after refresh rate changing.