[MPlayer-users] hwac3 with 5.1 on old nforce 220D s/pdif gives stereo only

[Michael Holland]

Dominique Dumont wrote:

> DD encoding works only with nvsound driver, not with Alsa because

fair enough. I wasn't expecting that to work.

> For simple DD output, I've found that you can get DD signal out of the
> SPDIF output, but it's flagged as audio not data, so some decoder
> (like my Yamaha A1) refuses to decode it.

I have a Yahama RX-v595a, and its seems to have no trouble.

> See https://bugtrack.alsa-project.org/alsa-bug/view.php?id=411 for details.

Interesting. I don't have anything to test that though.

>>Why is it cutting to 2 channels?
> 
> I'd say that the AC3 stream is stereo. Check with 'file' command.

No. Mplayer reports it as 5.1, and it works OK with analog output.
Mplayer seems to be converting it for some reason.

> Sorry I can't help you more that advising to buy a 25 Euros sound card

I can't find one that cheap here, but I'm short of PCI slots already.
One of the USB->3.5mm optical dongles would be good:

http://cgi.ebay.com.au/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=6879733310
http://cgi.ebay.com.au/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=6880166865

They don't say what the chip is. I'll try to fing out if ALSA supports 
anything like that.

> HTH (but I doubt it)

It helps a bit - thanks for the reply.
The lack of more replies suggests its an ALSA driver problem, so I'll 
have to learn more abou that.

Meanwhile, I ran the nvsound install script, both drivers are 
auto-loading in Ubuntu and nothing works! Even after a reboot.
This looks like keeping me busy for a while.

Mike.