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Bullseye with KDE.

I'm trying to get 5.1 surround sound working by sending the audio signal to my Yamaha receiver. I have successfully done this by using the S/PDIF cable which runs directly to the receiver. The problem with that is the audio and video get out of sync. I think it could be because the audio goes to the receiver on one cable and the video goes to the TV on a separate HDMI cable. So I'm trying to route the audio through the HDMI. This way the TV will send the signal to the receiver and hopefully fix the syncing issue.

When I open pavucontrol it says all my 5.1 and 7.1 connections are unplugged. All that is available is the stereo connections. I have no idea what to do.

A web search for "hdmi cable audio linux" turned up this article on troubleshooting HDMI audio in Ubuntu. It may help.

I use surround audio on Yamaha AVR [RX-A1040] via HDMI from my linux PC and works for me, straight from computer to AVR no problem. I didn't have to do any special configuration other than select it in pavu control, although I do have to make HDMI active (I use arandr but KDE probably has something automatic or fancy for that), but that's same for HDMI video anyway so if you have video already, I wonder why no audio...

But I think your cable routing sounds odd. Does your tv have some type of HDMI audio passthru output or something? Or are you thinking of using spdif from tv to avr? If so probably not gunna work, most TVs only output surround/AC3 on spdif from OTA HDTV sources; for other sources they output 2channel stereo. But of course depends on tv model, maybe some can handle your suggestion.

What model TV and AVR?

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When I open pavucontrol it says all my 5.1 and 7.1 connections are unplugged. All that is available is the stereo connections. I'm referring to the HDMI choices in pavucontrol. ONLY STEREO. The others is says are unplugged. Even though the TV is getting the video signal.

From what I've researched it seems this is an Nvidia/linux issue. Nvidia already hates linux and on top of that this is the audio section of a video card. I'm thinking the Nvidia driver is glitching and not sending the proper signals to pavucontrol.

I have the TV running fiber optic to the receiver and it plays in 5.1 when I'm watching Amazon Prime movies through the TV's operating system. I was guessing if it received an HDMI signal from the computer it could do the same.

When I have more time I'm going to switch to the noveau driver and see if pavucontrol sees HDMI 5.1...

I'm guessing it cannot. You didn't provide model number so I can't verify in your manual, but you should do so yourself, or check their forum, or avsforum, etc, to find out if such thing is even possible, it's probably not.

Have you tried plugging hdmi cable direct from pc to receiver, not trying to pass thru your tv?

For the record, I'm using use nvidia-340 proprietary.

I haven't tried the HDMI straight to the receiver. It's a Yamaha RX-V563.

Great, but how bout your TV, to see if it can magically past thru HDMI audio to spdif. That's what you're trying to do that is unlikely to be supported by the tv itself.

If you dont want to look it up, try hooking something else up that way, i.e. plug your DVR or BDP straight into your TV via HDMI instead of your AVR, and see if your TV sends that out on spdif.

I see that reciver only has two HDMI inputs, are both already in use, is that why you are running HDMI straight to TV from PC?

I can't get HDMI out on the AVR. I've reinitialized it and the TV still shows the HDMI option grayed out.

EDIT: Bought new HDMI cable. Fixed. Works.