Audio device switch

[tsvetan]

I have a system with a graphic card with HDMI output and I'm often using my TV to watch movies and listen music though HDMI. Unfortunately Ubuntu doesn't switch the sound output automatically upon HDMI device connection and I had to do it manually everytime. After some research and experiments I made a little bash script that switches the output audio devices.

The script assumes that pulseaudio is used and was tested with Karmic. It is pretty generic and actually has nothing to do with any HDMI device – it simply iterates over the sound devices and switches the output to the next one.

Here is how to make it work:

1. # sudo gedit /usr/local/bin/audio-device-switch.sh
2. Copy and paste the source code bellow in the gedit editor
3. Save it and close gedit
4. # sudo chmod 755 /usr/local/bin/audio-device-switch.sh
5. System -> Preferences -> Keyboard Shortcuts
6. Press „Add“ and enter „Switch between audio devices“ as name and audio-device-switch.sh as command and press „Apply“.
7. Select the newly added shortcut row and click on the „shortcut“ column. Choose a shortcut combination – e.g. Win + F12.
8. That's all - now you can plug in your plug in your HDMI device and switch the audio output by pressing the chosen shortcut combination.

#!/bin/bash

declare -i sinks_count=`pacmd list-sinks | grep -c index:[[:space:]][[:digit:]]`
declare -i active_sink_index=`pacmd list-sinks | sed -n -e 's/\*[[:space:]]index:[[:space:]]\([[:digit:]]\)/\1/p'`
declare -i major_sink_index=$sinks_count-1
declare -i next_sink_index=0

if [ $active_sink_index -ne $major_sink_index ] ; then
	next_sink_index=active_sink_index+1
fi

#change the default sink
pacmd "set-default-sink ${next_sink_index}"

#move all inputs to the new sink
for app in $(pacmd list-sink-inputs | sed -n -e 's/index:[[:space:]]\([[:digit:]]\)/\1/p');
do
	pacmd "move-sink-input $app $next_sink_index"
done

#display notification
declare -i ndx=0
pacmd list-sinks | sed -n -e 's/device.description[[:space:]]=[[:space:]]"\(.*\)"/\1/p' | while read line;
do
	if [ $next_sink_index -eq $ndx ] ; then
		notify-send -i notification-audio-volume-high "Sound output switched to" "$line"
		exit
	fi
	ndx+=1
done;

Hope that this is helpful.

[MarcusAntonius]

Hi,
That was exactly what I was looking for. I now have a desktop-starter linked to the script, and I can move audio with just one click. That was exactly what I was looking for

[nutsy.ben]

Simply brillant ....
I was looking for this for a while !!!



THANK YOU

[fbscarel]

I, too, was looking all over the place for some kind of script/command that would accomplish this simple task... thanks a lot, it works like a charm!

[worldofbill]

Fantastic! Thanks for this script. It works great to switch audio outputs on-the-fly for a Logitech USB headset for Skype.

[yanber]

I modified tsvetan's script slightly to allow for an (odd ?) behaviour on my machine where sinks often do not get assigned consecutive index numbers (e.g. I would get indexes 2 and 4 rather than 0 and 1, as the script expected).

I'll include it here in case someone else has the same issue.

#!/bin/bash

declare -i sinks=(`pacmd list-sinks | sed -n -e 's/\**[[:space:]]index:[[:space:]]\([[:digit:]]\)/\1/p'`)
declare -i sinks_count=${#sinks[*]}
declare -i active_sink_index=`pacmd list-sinks | sed -n -e 's/\*[[:space:]]index:[[:space:]]\([[:digit:]]\)/\1/p'`
declare -i next_sink_index=${sinks[0]}

#find the next sink (not always the next index number)
declare -i ord=0
while [ $ord -lt $sinks_count ];
do
    echo ${sinks[$ord]}
    if [ ${sinks[$ord]} -gt $active_sink_index ] ; then
        next_sink_index=${sinks[$ord]}
        break
    fi
    let ord++
done

#change the default sink
pacmd "set-default-sink ${next_sink_index}"

#move all inputs to the new sink
for app in $(pacmd list-sink-inputs | sed -n -e 's/index:[[:space:]]\([[:digit:]]\)/\1/p');
do
    pacmd "move-sink-input $app $next_sink_index"
done

#display notification
declare -i ndx=0
pacmd list-sinks | sed -n -e 's/device.description[[:space:]]=[[:space:]]"\(.*\)"/\1/p' | while read line;
do
    if [ $(( $ord % $sinks_count )) -eq $ndx ] ; then
        notify-send -i notification-audio-volume-high --hint=string:x-canonical-private-synchronous: "Sound output switched to" "$line"
        exit
    fi
    let ndx++
done;

Credit to tsvetan for creating the initial script and posting instructions on how to easily switch audio device! Thank you!

[daniferi]

Nice script, it is very useful to change my audio output when I want watch film in TV and use 2nd sound card for this

[dark-triad]

Thanks, works perfect for me too, but does anyone know how to alter the script to change the sound input too? would be nice if it could change the output and input all in one go for use with my bluetooth headset and skype.

[Takky]

I've found the script very Useful and I used it with "xrandr" to enable/disable TV output.
But now it's stopped working!

Default sink changes, but inputs created after the switch aren't affected by this change!
Someone else got this behaviour? Any solution? I haven't found any command to refresh or something similar.

The Cool thing is it seems to play something on one sink while playing something else on other sink...

However, Thanks a lot for the script..

[jambel]

can anyone help me with my problem here?
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.p...9#post10244899
I want to change only the sound input

Thanks