[mythtv-users] Dual digital audio outputs

[John Pilkington]

On 02/11/18 19:28, Allen Edwards wrote:
> 
> 
> On Fri, Nov 2, 2018 at 11:15 AM John Pilkington <johnpilk222 at gmail.com 
> <mailto:johnpilk222 at gmail.com>> wrote:
> 
>     On 02/11/18 16:38, Allen Edwards wrote:
>      > I have tried and failed to get both HDMI and SPDIF outputs
>     working at
>      > the same time.  I can get either one working by using
>     default:pulse and
>      > switching them with the pulse control panel but it would be nice
>     to have
>      > them both working without having to get up and go to a terminal
>     when I
>      > want to listen to a show with the big sound on.
>      >
>      > In my old system from 10 years ago I had two SPDIF outputs, one
>     for the
>      > TV through a converter and one into the surround system.  At that
>     time
>      > my asound.conf file looked like this:
>      >
>      > pcm.!default {
>      > type plug
>      > slave {
>      > pcm "hw:0,1"
>      > format S32_LE
>      > }
>      > }
>      >
>      >
>      > I tried to follow "Simultaneous Audio Output to Independent
>     Devices" and
>      > eliminate the extraneous stuff and came up with this.  Note that
>     the TV
>      > gets sound from HDMI and that works but I do not get sound on the
>      > surround system.
>      >
>      > dad at NewMyth:~$ more /etc/asound.conf
>      > pcm.!default {
>      >      type plug
>      >      slave {
>      >          pcm "multi_dig"
>      >      }
>      > }
>      >
>      > pcm.multi_dig {
>      >      type multi
>      >      # Define SPDIF slave
>      >      slaves.a {
>      >          pcm "hw:0,1"
>      >          #tried both with and without this next line
>      >          format S32_LE
>      >      }
>      >      # Define HDMI slave
>      >      slaves.b {
>      >          pcm "hw:1,7"
>      >      }
>      > }
>      >
>      > I set Myth setup to asla:default but I only get HDMI audio.  If I
>     set
>      > myth to play device  hw:0,1 I get audio out of the surround and
>     if I set
>      > it up to Nvidia HDMI 7 I get output to the TV.
>      >
>      > I tried to look in the Alsa website and read an article on multiple
>      > cards and all I understood was that things are probably different
>     now
>      > and nothing that used to work will work any more.  Maybe that is the
>      > problem...
>      >
>      > I am using Muthbuntu 16.  Anybody have this working on a similar
>     system
>      > and care to share?
>      >
>      > Allen
> 
>     Well, no, I don't have a similar system, but my fedora kde/plasma setup
>     has simultaneous audio to HDMI and builtin audio set up as default.  My
>     /etc/asound.conf is effectively empty.
> 
>     But searching for 'ubuntu simultaneous audio ...' gave a 2018 reference
>     to paprefs, Pulse Audio Preferences, a graphical utility available via
>     apt-get.  It might do what you want.
> 
>     John
> 
> 
> John, How do you have it set up to do HDMI and builtin audio at the same 
> time?  Is the built in audio digital?  I suspect mine gives HDMI and 
> analog although I have not tried it as that is not what I want.
> 
> I tried paprefs I will spare you the details but let's just say I would 
> not recommend it.
> 
> Allen

Pity about that.  My audio devices are the GK208 nvidia HDMI2 device in 
a GT 710 card and the Built-in audio stereo in the 10-year old HP 
core2duo.  lspci shows 01:00.1 and 00:1b.0  The configuration is through 
a kde/plasma widget 'Audio Volume' with a virtual output device in its 
'Advanced ' tab.  The details seem to have changed since my f27/28 
upgrade and may not translate to *buntu anyway :-(