[ubuntu] SPDIF in Hardy

[devguy]

I'm a pretty new member to these forums but I've been searching on them for a while now. I just installed Hardy on my desktop on Sunday and I've had tons of problems (and four reinstalls later, here I am). One of the big issues I've had is getting SPDIF out of my sound card. Well, here is what I did:

1) type "aplay -l" in a terminal minus the quotes.
2) if you have a sound card (onboard or otherwise) which can do digital audio output, you should hopefully see it listed. For example, mine looks as such:

card 0: SB [HDA ATI SB], device 0: ALC882 Analog [ALC882 Analog]
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 0: SB [HDA ATI SB], device 1: ALC882 Digital [ALC882 Digital]
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 1: HDMI [HDA ATI HDMI], device 3: ATI HDMI [ATI HDMI]
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0

3) take note of which one is the digital. In my case, it is card 0, device 1.
4) type "sudo nautilus" into the terminal without the quotes and navigate to "/etc/pulse/" and open "default.pa".
5) add a line at the very bottom like this:

 load-module module-alsa-sink device=hw:0,1

where the part "hw:0,1" is hardware card 0, device 1 (use the ones you got from step 3).
6) save and exit this file
7) type in these commands to reset PulseAudio:

  pulseaudio -k
        pulseaudio -D

verify using pavucontrol (type "sudo apt-get install pavucontrol" to install it, and once installed, just type "pavucontrol" in the terminal. You should be able to look in the next tab and see both your standard analog device, as well as the one we added in. Right click the new one and choose make default (if that is what you desire).

It seems this helps a lot of people, but I needed a few more steps (you may need them as well, so follow these if the above still doesn't work.

9) double click the speaker icon in the notification area (upper right corner near shut down button).
10) make sure that under "file/change device", you see the device that corresponds to the one you found in step two (ex- mine is "SB [HDA ATI SB]"). If it isn't the right one, select the right one.
11) go to "edit/preferences" and with the little menu that pops up, just go ahead and put a check mark next to everything. Now, close the pop up, as well as the volume control menu.
12) reopen the volume control menu by clicking on the speaker in the upper right again.
13) in the tab labeled "switches", make sure to uncheck the headphone option and to have checked iec958 and iec958 capture (important, although I'm not sure why).
14) in the original tab (playback), make sure that master volume is at a good volume (and not muted).

Hopefully that should do it for you. I have no idea why one has to go through all this nonsense (especially notifying PulseAudio of the digital device in default.pa). What is even worse is that on both my desktop and my laptop, I can't even play an mp3 using VLC with PulseAudio without getting serious sound artifacts every few seconds in VLC, so I have to change the output module to ALSA (perhaps just a VLC issue as Totem seems to not have the same problem).

Anyways, I'm using a Gigabyte 790FX motherboard with an ALC889A sound card. For whatever reason, it is recognized as an ALC882 (as you can see above). Is there anyway to get DTS:Connect to work in Linux? I've tried using the Realtek drivers twice, and on both occasions, they completely hosed my install, forcing me to reinstall.

Thanks to this person for helping me out.

[volkswagner]

I have the same onboard sound as you. Mine is on Gigabyte. I have had spdif working under gutsy. Something broke it though. I believe it broke during updates.

Anyway not sure if this helps since I am not running Hardy. All I had to do to get it working was use alsa. First open alsamixer and make sure iec958 is not muted. Then create and .asoundrc text file in my home directory containing the following.

pcm.!default {
    type plug
        slave {
        rate 48000
        pcm "spdif"
    }
}

I was only concerned using inside mythtv which has settings to call alsa. You may need a config file to include all apps using sound.

I will be checking this thread. It may help me decide if I want to upgrade to hardy.

[devguy]

Cool, but unfortunately (yes, at this point I believe it to be unfortunate) PulseAudio is the default sound module in Hardy and I'm not sure how to revert it back to ALSA throughout. It is apparently not as simple as going to "system/prefs/sounds" and just changing everything to the ALSA digital output.

Basically, I just tried to get PulseAudio to do anything through the digital out and apps that have problems with it but can be configured themselves to use ALSA (as apparently VLC does), just do that.

[ubusarah]

I just installed Hardy on a new machine and the HDMI sound doesn't work. I tried "aplay -l" and got this:

**** List of PLAYBACK Hardware Devices ****
card 0: Intel [HDA Intel], device 0: ALC883 Analog [ALC883 Analog]
Subdevices: 1/1
Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 0: Intel [HDA Intel], device 1: ALC883 Digital [ALC883 Digital]
Subdevices: 1/1
Subdevice #0: subdevice #0

Nothing says "HDMI"...

My motherboard is an MSI G33, and the SPDIF cable is connected to an NVidia 8500 card which has an HDMI output connected to my TV. The sound works in Vista.

I have the restricted NVidia drivers installed.

I'll check back; I don't have time to fix this right now... but sooner or later I'll need to fix this. I want to be able to run mythtv too.

[ansicplusplus]

Hy, I just got spdif in hardy working. I post my way here in case it helps someone else.
Step 1: Replace onboard sound with a plain and simple Terratec Aureon 5.1
Step 2: Deinstall pulseaudio and use alsa instead.

I am pretty sure my onboard spdif (asus p4g8x deluxe) isn't broken although I never used it before when my pc had other tasks. However my av-receiver didn't get any sound but the activation/deaktivation of the digital connection. Today I was fed up and replaced it with a Terratec Aureon 5.1 (for about 25 EUR) with optical spdif.
The card works perfectly and I disabled onboard sound since some apps got confused by 2 spdif ports.

As I learned in the forums, pulseaudio is uncapable of ac3-passthrough at the moment. As I couldn't figure out how to configure the rest of it, I decided to deinstall it. I switched mplayer, vlc and the system-audio explicitly to alsa. For mplayer and vlc I activated the hwac3-codec resp. spdif-passthrough and the use of the device iec958 as sound device.
In case you get error messages regarding an unknown parameter 'AES' try using the device name iec958 instead of something like hw:0,2.

Yours, ansicplusplus

[ubusarah]

Hmm, a solution that requires installing a sound card will be a problem for me, as my new machine doesn't have any slots free...

Actually, that's not entirely true... I do have one of those tiny little PCI Express x1 slot free, but it's blocked by the heatsink on the video card.

For me, the easiest solution will probably turn out to be using DVI and separate audio cables rather than HDMI. I think my TV can only do this on one of its inputs, which is fine provided that I can disconnect the *other* computer currently connected to the TV, which doesn't have an HDMI port.

Getting the onboard SPDIF sound to go through the HDMI connection would definitely be more convenient.

I won't have time to try to get it working until next week at the earlist.

[Trollslayer]

Originally Posted by ubusarah I just installed Hardy on a new machine and the HDMI sound doesn't work. I tried "aplay -l" and got this: **** List of PLAYBACK Hardware Devices **** card 0: Intel [HDA Intel], device 0: ALC883 Analog [ALC883 Analog] Subdevices: 1/1 Subdevice #0: subdevice #0 card 0: Intel [HDA Intel], device 1: ALC883 Digital [ALC883 Digital] Subdevices: 1/1 Subdevice #0: subdevice #0 Nothing says "HDMI"... My motherboard is an MSI G33, and the SPDIF cable is connected to an NVidia 8500 card which has an HDMI output connected to my TV. The sound works in Vista. I have the restricted NVidia drivers installed. I'll check back; I don't have time to fix this right now... but sooner or later I'll need to fix this. I want to be able to run mythtv too.

The HDMI part is handled by the graphics system and it seems the nVida card has to enable the routing of the SPDIF audio .
I have an Abit motherboard with built in ATI HDMI video and the HDMI audio shows up on the graaphics chip rather than the audio chip.

[Clappy]

I just did an upgrade that killed my sound (after restart) and I had just gone through 3 days of troubleshooting it. I just killed pulseaudio

pulseaudio -kk

and immediately my sound was working again. I'm not comfortable uninstalling pulseaudio because I'm not sure of the dependencies, but I have no problem turning it off. Sound works great and works on multiple programs at once

[zsolt320i]

Hi,

i have a motherboard Abit KN8 SLI, ant this motherboard has optical output.
Under Win Xp it works well, but under Hardy Heron i can not make to work the passtrough.The pc is connected to the amplifier with optical cable.
What ubuntu recognize is:
**** 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

Would it be possible to solve the SPDIF passtrough working?
Heeelp me!
Thanks!

[zsolt320i]

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