Date: Tue, 09 Oct 2012 15:11:05 -0700 From: "Ronald F. Guilmette" <rfg@tristatelogic.com> To: freebsd-hardware@freebsd.org Subject: Audio out via HDMI... how? Message-ID: <32288.1349820665@tristatelogic.com>
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[[ I didn't get much in the way of traction on this question over in freebsd-questions, so I am posting it again here, in the hopes that I will have more luck here. ]] I have a laptop which has an HDMI output port. I can get _video_ out of that (with xbmc) just fine. Audio, not so much. Like not at all, as far as I can tell. So anyway, here is what I get when I do "cat /dev/sndstat": pcm0: <HDA Realtek ALC888 PCM #0 Analog> (play/rec) default pcm1: <HDA Realtek ALC888 PCM #1 Analog> (rec) pcm2: <HDA Intel Cantiga HDMI PCM #0 HDMI> (play) I have the HDMI output wired into my everything-capable Sony 5.1 channel receiver, which then, in turn, is wired into my 4 (count 'em four) speakers. OK, so now, could somebody please just tell me how I can do a test that will determine why I ain't gettin' no audio? (And by the way, what I am *really* trying to do here is to run xbmc. But no audio is coming out of that... at least not via the HDMI port... so I'm stuck tying to dredge into this problem at a deeper level. Oddly, when running xbmc on the laptop, there _is_ 2channel sound coming out of the tinny little built-in speakers in the laptop.) So anyway... My intelligent HDMI-switching handles-everything receiver is capable of decoding 5.1 DTS-HD, Dolby TrueHD, and eveything else too. The receiver is working just fine.. not a thing wrong with it. It works great with my Blu-Ray player and does the digital->analog decoding for anything and everything I throw at it. Again, I just want to know: How does one go about TESTING audio output via a laptop HDMI-out port? I tried these things (while the laptop's HDMI port was wired to my receiver), but not a sound was heard: cat /dev/random > /dev/dsp cat /dev/random > /dev/dsp2 (Note that before I ever did this test I set hw.snd.default_unit=2.) The FreeBSD handbook page that deals with setiing up audio cards doesn't provide a whole lot of guidance for how to test and/or fix digital audio output, whether it is coming out via HDMI (as in my case) or via any other kind of physical transport (e.g. coax or S/PDIF). Somwebody please pass me a clue. I'd really like to get this working. Thanks. Regards, rfg P.S. Even if I end up, in the end, downmixing all my audio to 2 channel, in xbmc, before the audio even hits the HDMI cable, I could live with that. Bu right now, as far as I can tell, I can't get _any_ kind of audio flowing down that HDMI cable at all, period.
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