[mythtv-users] HDMI and audio

[Patrick Doyle]

On Wed, Nov 18, 2009 at 10:15 PM, John Finlay <finlay at moeraki.com> wrote:
> Jim Stichnoth wrote:
> Once I had the correct xorg.conf entries it all fell into place. If I
> had motherboard support for digital audio I probably would have used digital
> audio over HDMI thru the Nvidia card.
>
> Hope that clarifies my situation that seems to have created confusion.
It does... thank you for the extra info.

I am curious and confused (yet again) however... what is it about your
motherboard that inhibited the use of "digital audio over HDMI thru
the Nvidia card"?

As I understand it, (and I'm making some of this up), the driver for
the nVidia card should provide an audio output device for alsa to use.
 MythTV should be able to make use of that audio output device instead
of whatever (real) audio output device is on your motherboard.  It
should be able to route the (digital) audio samples directly to that
device.

I spent a fair amount of this afternoon confused by (possibly a single
posting) that referenced some sort of cable that would connect from
the motherboard to an audio pass-thru port on the video card.  But
since HDMI is all digital, I think that the driver for an HDMI video
card should provide a virtual input spigot into which SW can scribble
audio samples to be transferred to the TV.  At this point, I have no
idea what format those samples are (16 bit PCM, 48kHz comes to mind,
but they could just as easily be a compressed MP3 stream).

Am I misunderstanding something here?

Oh, and for all of those who've been following my various questions
and posts... I just placed the order with Newegg.  I expect I'll go
silent for about a week now until the HW arrives and I start trying to
integrate it with the SW.  Thank you once again for your patience,
your understanding, and your willingness to share your expertise.

--wpd