[pulseaudio-discuss] Playing audion on TV through HDMI cable with mplayer

[Alexander E. Patrakov]

2013/12/11 Alexander E. Patrakov <patrakov at gmail.com>:
> 2013/12/11 James Board <jpboard2 at yahoo.com>:
>> I'm on a Linux PC and I'm playing a video file to my LCD TV through
>> the HDMI cable.  I can get the sound to play on the PC speakers, but
>> I would like to play sound on the TV speakers (thru HDMI cable).  Does
>> anyone know how I can do that?  I think this is an appropriate question for
>> this mailing-list since all audio goes through pulseaudio, but if not, let
>> me know.
>
> That's actually very easy. Just follow the steps below.
>
> 1. Ensure that you have an audio mixer that can change device
> profiles. GNOME's default volume control application is good. KDE's
> default mixer (KMix) does not allow changing the audio device profile
> and thus is bad, but there is also KDE's control center where you can
> configure sound. The xfce4-mixer application is just bad. So, if you
> have KDE or XFCE, please install pavucontrol (it is GTK-based, but
> does not pull any GNOME stuff) and use it instead of whatever comes by
> default. It doesn't hurt on GNOME, too. So, below, I assume that you
> have it.
>
> 2. Determine which sound card provides the HDMI audio output. To do
> so, run pavucontrol and go to the Configuration tab. You will see one
> or more audio cards there, with combo boxes that allow changing
> profiles of each card. On some hardware, HDMI audio is a separate
> device (this is the case for Haswell and for any discrete graphics
> card), and in some cases it shares the same device with analog
> outputs. I think that, by looking at available profiles for each card,
> you will quickly find the one that offers the HDMI output.
>
> 3. Select the profile that has HDMI outputs. In some cases (e.g. more
> than one HDMI output), there are several such profiles, and you will
> have to guess which one to use. Take a note of its name and the name
> of the device it belongs to.
>
> 4. Go to the Output tab and find the sink that mentions the correct
> device and profile in its name. Select the correct port if this is not
> already done. Press the green "set as fallback" button.
>
> 5. Should be done, but, if the player still plays on analog output, go
> to the Playback tab of pavucontrol and select the correct sink for the
> playsr's stream.
>
> Here is what it looks like on hardware where HDMI is a separate
> device: http://imgur.com/a/6u73B

Here is what it looks like in pavucontrol on hardware where the same
card is responsible for both analog and HDMI outputs:
http://imgur.com/a/3s5nE

And here is what KDE control center thinks about the same hardware:
http://imgur.com/mfi7fOm

-- 
Alexander E. Patrakov