[pulseaudio-discuss] Sending all audio out S/PDIF

[Nasa]

----- "Lennart Poettering" <lennart at poettering.net> wrote:

> On Fri, 28.08.09 01:22, Nasa (nasa01 at comcast.net) wrote:
> 
> > Hi,
> > 
> > Earlier this month in a thread titled Pulse -> ALSA:spdif broken on
> my Fedora 10 system there was discussion on how to send audio 
> > out the digital (ie spdif) port.  At the end of the thread I
> gathered that adding the following to the default.pa file would do the
> trick...
> > 
> > load-module module-alsa-sink devie=spdif
> 
> Try "device" instead of "devie". Also, you might want to pass the
> card
> name here as well. i.e. "device=spdif:Intel" if your card is called
> "Intel". See /proc/asound/cards for the card names.
> 
> > However, I haven't had much luck -- getting the following errors:
> > 
> > Failed to parse module arguments
> > E: module.c: Failed to load  module "module-alsa-sink"
> 
> Increase the log level in PA to get a more detailed explanation on
> what is going on.
> 
> > I am attempting to send all of my audio out of my spdif port, and I
> > do expect to have to do some mixing at some point. Why? audio in my
> > car is done via spdif and I expect to have audio for both music and
> > gps directions at the same time.  Is this going to be possible?
> > Thanks in advanced.
> 
> Sure. PA can mix audio for you.
> 
> Lennart
> 
Thanks everyone for all the replies!!!

Taking Lennart's suggestion of using -vv, I noted the following:

D: alsa-util.c: Trying spdif:0 with SND_PCM_NO_AUTO_FORMAT ...
D: alsa-util.c: Maximum hw buffer size is 341 ms
W: alsa-util.c: Device spdif:0 doesn't support 44100 Hz, changed to 48000 Hz.
W: alsa-util.c: Device spdif:0 doesn't support 6 channels, changed to 2.
I: module-alsa-sink.c: Successfully opened device spdif:0.
I: module-alsa-sink.c: Successfully enabled mmap() mode.
I: module-alsa-sink.c: Successfully enabled timer-based scheduling mode.
I: (alsa-lib)control.c: Invalid CTL spdif:0
I: alsa-util.c: Unable to attach to mixer spdif:0: No such file or directory
I: alsa-util.c: Successfully attached to mixer 'hw:0'
I: alsa-util.c: Using mixer control "Master".

I'm not sure where to go with this...  Have I messed up Pulse configuration or is there some
Alsa configuration I should be doing?  I have included some system info below so I can hopefully get
a better clue....

Nasa

Here's aplay output:

ice at ice-car:~$ aplay -L
I: caps.c: Limited capabilities successfully to CAP_SYS_NICE.
I: caps.c: Dropping root privileges.
I: caps.c: Limited capabilities successfully to CAP_SYS_NICE.
front:CARD=ICH7,DEV=0
    Intel ICH7, Intel ICH7
    Front speakers
surround40:CARD=ICH7,DEV=0
    Intel ICH7, Intel ICH7
    4.0 Surround output to Front and Rear speakers
surround41:CARD=ICH7,DEV=0
    Intel ICH7, Intel ICH7
    4.1 Surround output to Front, Rear and Subwoofer speakers
surround50:CARD=ICH7,DEV=0
    Intel ICH7, Intel ICH7
    5.0 Surround output to Front, Center and Rear speakers
surround51:CARD=ICH7,DEV=0
    Intel ICH7, Intel ICH7
    5.1 Surround output to Front, Center, Rear and Subwoofer speakers
iec958:CARD=ICH7,DEV=0
    Intel ICH7, Intel ICH7 - IEC958
    IEC958 (S/PDIF) Digital Audio Output
null

And my default.pa looks like (comments removed):

.nofail

load-sample-dir-lazy /usr/share/sounds/ubuntu/stereo

.fail

.ifexists module-gconf.so
.nofail
load-module module-gconf
.fail
.endif

load-module module-suspend-on-idle

load-module module-device-restore
load-module module-stream-restore

load-module module-alsa-sink device=spdif:0 channels=6 sink_name=dig_out

.ifexists module-hal-detect.so
load-module module-hal-detect tsched=0
.else
load-module module-detect
.endif

.ifexists module-esound-protocol-unix.so
load-module module-esound-protocol-unix
.endif
load-module module-native-protocol-unix

load-module module-default-device-restore

load-module module-rescue-streams

load-module module-always-sink

load-module module-position-event-sounds

set-default-sink dig_out