On Sun 12 Feb 2023 at 15:48:51 (-0800), Charlie Gibbs wrote:
> This is going a bit off topic, but since there are probably
> a number of sound gurus following the original thread, I
> thought I'd throw out another sound question.
>
> I have a desktop machine running Debian 11. It contains an
> nVidia card which I've hooked to my TV via HDMI. Currently
> sound is coming out the analog jacks on the computer; I'd like
> to put the sound on the HDMI output so when switching the TV
> from my cable box to the computer, I don't have to also switch
> my sound system's input.
>
> I know my hardware is capable of doing this; if I type
>
> mpv --audio-device=alsa/hdmi:CARD=NVidia,DEV=0 foo.mp3
>
> foo.mp3 will play through the HDMI audio output rather than
> the default analog jacks. What I want to do is make the HDMI
> audio output the default.
>
> When I bring up alsamixer and hit F6, I get the following choices:
> 0 HDA Intel
> 1 HDA NVidia
> 2 IVTV-0
> 3 IVTV-1
> There's no mention of which is the default or how to set a default.
>
> Here's the output of the aplay -l command:
>
> **** List of PLAYBACK Hardware Devices ****
> card 0: Intel [HDA Intel], device 0: STAC9271D Analog [STAC9271D Analog]
> Subdevices: 1/1
> Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
> card 0: Intel [HDA Intel], device 1: STAC9271D Digital [STAC9271D Digital]
> Subdevices: 1/1
> Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
> card 1: NVidia [HDA NVidia], device 3: HDMI 0 [HDMI 0]
> Subdevices: 1/1
> Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
> card 1: NVidia [HDA NVidia], device 7: HDMI 1 [HDMI 1]
> Subdevices: 1/1
> Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
>
> I've tried cobbling together bits and pieces I've found in
> various places to create the following /etc/aplay.conf:
>
> defaults.pcm.card 1
> defaults.pcm.device 0
> defaults.ctl.card 1
> defaults.ctl.device 0
>
> pcm.!default {
> type hw
> card 1
> device 0
> }
>
> ctl.!default {
> type hw
> card 1
> device 0
> }
>
> I've tried substituting both 3 and 7 on the "device" lines,
> but nothing seems to have any effect.
>
> I'm not sure what it takes to get ALSA to recognize a change in
> its configuration, so I rebooted after each change just in case.
>
> Although I've found many references to this topic on the web,
> the answers are confusing, conflicting, or oriented toward
> PulseAudio rather than ALSA. Can someone help clear the air?
I think the section "Wrong card used by default" in:
https://wiki.debian.org/ALSA
should help. There's more detail at:
https://alsa.opensrc.org/MultipleCards
and I think both these are pure ALSA and PA-free.
Cheers,
David.
