The simplest way to remap HDMI Pulseaudio channels (Gen 1 ION and similar)
#1
I'm new here, so be gentle. I wanted to share a how-to I found.

Ever since building a new home theater setup and finally taking the plunge into surround sound I've been extremely irritated at the incorrectly mapped HDMI audio channels on my ASRock 330ION. So, to begin I tried following this guide. Yes, it worked and passthrough to my receiver is wonderful. However, this broke audio in some applications that I launch with advanced launcher and caused all kinds of other audio problems in xubuntu 12.04.

Next I decided to try another method, remapping in pulseaudio. I was directed to this post a few times. However, I could never get it to work.

I kept on googling until I found a much simpler method. This worked for me. Pretty damn simple.

I changed the order of the channels in /usr/share/pulseaudio/alsa-mixer/profile-sets/extra-hdmi.conf for all entries which needed remapping like so:

Quote:[Mapping hdmi-surround]
description = Digital Surround 5.1 (HDMI)
device-strings = hdmi:%f
paths-output = hdmi-output-0
channel-map = front-left,front-right,front-center,lfe,rear-left,rear-right
priority = 3
direction = output

The order of the channels will depend on which ones are mixed up for you. You just need to tell XBMC that your receiver isn't capable of decoding anything on it's own. Since pulseaudio still doesn't play nice with passthrough in ubuntu 12.04. Also, the audio output device can just be set to Pulseaudio defaults. It would figure that I get this fixed right before I upgrade to an i3 Ivy Bridge with HD4000 graphics, which I'm sure will have it's own problems Laugh

My receiver says it's receiving 5.1 multichannel PCM, so I would assume that XBMC is just converting the Dolby Digital and DTS and sending it in PCM format. The sounds from the speakers seem correct to me.

I don't know if anyone else out there is still rocking an ION-based setup, but this may prove useful.
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#2
Feel free to update the wiki page with the pulseaudio config and instructions ;D

uNi
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#3
Wiki updated. Hopefully this saves other people the frustration I've experienced.
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#4
I didnt realize you were messing with Eden, this close to Frodo and considering Frodo has a completely different audio approach. ION will still need remapping on HDMI anyway though this setup is likely not going to work in frodo.

Good post anyway.

uNi
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#5
Yes, I haven't been trying Frodo yet since as of now everything is working pretty well with Eden for me. However, I'll be changing my hardware soon and that's probably a good excuse to give Frodo a shot.

Getting this working late is better than never, I suppose.
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The simplest way to remap HDMI Pulseaudio channels (Gen 1 ION and similar)0