On 11/12/2013 7:11 PM, Doug wrote: > On 11/12/2013 07:32 PM, Stan Hoeppner wrote: >> On 11/12/2013 5:37 PM, Jon N wrote: >> ... >>> There is one an area that I'm pretty unsure of. I am planning on >>> purchasing a Nvidia video card and disabling the built in Intel video >>> support. Since I plan to use this computer as a MythTV >>> frontend/backend (as well as for general web browsing/email) getting >>> the audio out on the Nvidia card's HDMI port is important to my >>> particular setup. So will the audio automatically be switched to the >>> Nvidia cards HDMI connector? >> No, it won't be automatic. And frankly I don't believe nVidia supports >> HDMI digital audio pass through, nor any discrete GPU card. For >> argument's sake, let's say it does. Then you run into the problem that >> the onboard audio chip can't pass digital audio through PCIe to the >> nVidia HDMI port. None of them are designed to do this, that I'm >> aware of. >> >> If I were you I'd get a mainboard with with HDMI out and use the CPU's >> GPU. Mobos that have onboard HDMI have their audio chips wired to the >> HDMI port, the chips support PCM/AC3 digital output, and selecting the >> HDMI output for digital audio is pretty straightforward. >> >> The Intel GPU should be plenty powerful enough for HD1080 output. If >> you decide it's not, and want to add a discrete card, you'll need a mobo >> with coaxial digital SPDIF output, or Toslink optical digital output, >> and a TV or A/V receiver that is cable of using an HDMI input for video >> while using coax or Toslink for audio. Nearly all modern A/V receivers >> support this. WRT LCD/Plasma TVs I have no idea how many support this. >> > I have an NVidia GeForce GTX 550 Ti card in a machine with on-board > Realtek 662 sound > decoder. Normally--that is locally--sound is decoded by the Realtek on > the mobo. > The NVidia card has a mini HDMI connector (I needed an adapter to > standard) > and the card has a sound decoder in it.
This isn't the case. All digital audio (AC3, PCM, DTS, etc) is decoded at the endpoint device. In this case that is the TV or A/V receiver. Everywhere else in the path the digital audio stream is simply passed through. The trick with Linux is getting all of the devices recognized, and being able to select which 'path' the digital stream should take. > Using Windows XP, I could run a > movie thru HDMI > to my TV set and picture and sound would come thru perfectly. NVidia > provides a driver > for Windows that makes this "just work." And this is the key. nVidia registers an audio output device that can be selected in control panel as the preferred output device. WSS then directs digital audio through this device. There is no such equivalent in Linux, that I'm aware of. > I never could get the sound to > work to the TV > from my PCLinuxOS system, but obviously, it's THERE! (The video comes > thru the TV OK.) > One contributor to the PCLOS forum who seemed to know what he was doing > tried very > hard to make the sound work, but without success. (Ideally, it should be > possible to > get both sound and video _at the same time_ both locally and at the TV.) > Just so you know. Which is why I recommended the mobo-down HDMI solution, which doesn't have these problems of output device selection. -- Stan -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/5282fcc7.9090...@hardwarefreak.com
