ALSA, PulseAudio and 5.1 surround sound

[zsolt320i]

Hi,

I have the same problem like many of you!
I have Hardy Heron 64, motherboard Abit KN8SLi, Sound card:
**** List of PLAYBACK Hardware Devices ****
card 0: CK804 [NVidia CK804], device 0: Intel ICH [NVidia CK804]
Subdevices: 0/1
Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 0: CK804 [NVidia CK804], device 2: Intel ICH - IEC958 [NVidia CK804 - IEC958]
Subdevices: 1/1
Subdevice #0: subdevice #0.
The PC is connected with an optical cable to the amplifier.
The problem is that the SPDIF passtrough does not work, therefore the dolby do not work
Is there any chance to solve the passtrough?

[Chobo-Mog]

Originally Posted by Hknuckles I installed the Hardy RC today and had similar problems with my 5.1, all I needed to do was uncomment the line 'default-sample-channels' in the file /etc/pulse/daemon.conf and set the value from 2 to 6 for this line. Then I just set everything to use PulseAudio in System>Preferences>Sound. Cheers

Worked perfectly with my Hardy LTS and Audigy 2 ZS. Thanks! =D

[MeURi]

I went crazy for some days, then some minutes ago I came up with a working setup (trial and error approach rules )

My hardware:

• Realtek ALC650 (AC97 Codec rev 02) on Intel ICH4
• Creative T6060 5.1 speakers

My /etc/asound.conf

pcm.pulse {
    type pulse
}
ctl.pulse {
    type pulse
}
pcm.!default {
    type pulse
}
ctl.!default {
    type pulse
}

Then, my changes in the /etc/pulse/daemon.conf

default-sample-rate = 48000
default-sample-channels = 6

I'm using pulseaudio-esound-compat, and under System>Preferences>Sound I have the following setup:

• Devices: Everything says "PulseAudio Sound Server"; the Default mixer tracks section has "Intel 82801DB-ICH4 (Alsa-mixer)" as device
• Sounds: "Enable software sound mixing (ESD)" is enabled

My user is in both pulse-access and pulse-rt groups

From the gnome-volume-control applet I had to specify:

• Surround Jack Mode: Shared
• Channel mode: 6ch
• Duplicate Front: disabled

Now I have my stereo sound replicated through all my speakers, with surround.
The speaker-test command works (except that I have rear channels and center/LFE swapped - actually I noticed that only performing a speaker test, else I would have said everything worked perfect)

I'm gonna test some dvd playback with real 5.1 sound, and add my results.

-- DVD playback results --
I still have only stereo output option under vlc
Totem simply refuses to play my unencrypted dvd, gets stuck at 0:00. Moreover, under the Properties tab, it says that audio is AC3, but has 0 channels
-- End of results --

My just two cents

[MeURi]

@ zsolt320i:

I don't know much about passthrough...

Try looking at this thread, maybe it hepls

[sammydee]

Anyone having problems with surround sound in pulseaudio, BEFORE messing around with asound.conf or anything like that, should probably check out this thread.

It might be very easy to get working

[KuriKai]

[QUOTE=Hknuckles
I installed the Hardy RC today and had similar problems with my 5.1, all I needed to do was uncomment the line 'default-sample-channels' in the file /etc/pulse/daemon.conf and set the value from 2 to 6 for this line. Then I just set everything to use PulseAudio in System>Preferences>Sound.
[/QUOTE]

this worked for me as well, thanks

[GraysonPeddie]

Sorry to bring up this old thread but...

Originally Posted by irshadcharm Sound Card: Sigmatel STAC 92221 Series...ive tried the above step but of no use....

Same here, with my AMD 780G chipset (ECS motherboard).