[LIVE] Acer Revo 3610 HDMI Audio working under Dharma

I spent about two weeks fighting with getting audio to work over hdmi with my Revo 3610 and I finally found a solution that worked for me. I was frustrated with how many people (with the same hardware and software) were posting that simply unmuting s/pdif in alsamixer was all they had to do. If that worked for you, great. If you had the same problem I did and it didn't work, hopefully the steps below will help you get HDMI audio working.

I'll try to make this as step by step as possible and not skip any steps that might seem granted. These steps do assume that you have installed XBMC Live to your hard disk.

First up, updating the OS and installing the latest NVIDIA drivers.

Exit XBMC and log in to the command line. Execute the following commands:


With the upgrades done go ahead and restart the box.


After the reboot exit XBMC again and log back in at the command line.

Unmute S/PDIF in alsamixer (highlight any channels that have mm and press the m key)


Exit alsamixer and back to the command line.


The above command shows output that identifies your hdmi audio output as card 0 device 3. We'll use that information in the following command when we try to play a test sound.


You should hear a voice say "Center" if it works. In my setup I sometimes don't hear audio for a second or so after it starts playing so I had to run the command twice before I heard anything.

If your test was successful you now know your hardware works.
Next you'll create an /etc/asound.conf file to force hdmi audio to be the default.



Press Ctrl+x to exit nano and y when prompted to save the file.

Reboot your Revo one more time. At this point I was able to get sound out of videos in XBMC but I went ahead and browsed into Settings>System>Audio Output and applied the following:


That's it. I really hope this helps someone. I just verified these steps on a fresh install of Dharma Live so I'm fairly certain I haven't missed anything.

Good luck!

btdonovan Wrote:Good luck!

Thank you. It appears we need a good deal of luck to make this common issue go away. I followed your and many other's instruction about how to get the sound work on Ubuntu 10.10 with the latest XBMC via HDMI connection, but it appears everyone has a different issue with different solution...

I completely removed pulseaudio after reading somewhere that XBMC can not use it and that may be the only difference between our configuration.

Anyway, I can hear the sound if I plug my speaker to the headphone port on the front of the Revo, but nothing comes out from the speakers of the telly via the HDMI link...

Dude thank you so much this tutorial works perfectly
if somone got an trouble with any acer revo with sound or hdmi it works like a charm
thank you again you made my day

btdonovan,
Thank you so much for this thread. I have tried a thousand different configurations with some getting me playback audio but no nav sounds and vice versa. Sometimes if I did get both working some DTS files wouldn't playback audio. Total nightmare and my wife thought I was losing my mind.

This thread got my Revo 1600 AND 3610 HDMI audio working perfectly. The 3610 is connected to a 7.1 amp at 1080p and the 1600 directly to my 720p Sony LCD 2-channel downmix. Sweeeetness!!!!!!!!

Thanks a lot!
I went through all the steps and even though the "aplay" command never produced sound (it did when I select 0,0 the analog o/p but not 0,3 the HDMI o/p) XBMC did start playing sound through the HDMI connection.
Youpi !

The "vi" side of me wishes I could have got aplay working though ;-)

I have the revo 1600 and have a hodge podge if conf files and settings from about 6 different posts. I think I may have screwed the pooch. I get video, but when there is movement (walking across screen) I get frame drops. The audio doesn't sync up and the options in my passthrough are hdmi(ALSA), Default (Alsa) and Cutom which I put hdmi:CARD=NVidia. This all started when I did an apt-get update and apt-get upgrade.

I know all of the above is incorrect and I need a good starting point. I followed your instructions, but still get no sound. As I mentiond, I have been through a lot of threads trying to piece it together and now I believe a got confused and messed it all up.

Is there a good place to start, or should I just start over and try OpenElec?

XELOR, would you be willing to share an image of your 1600?

**EDIT**
Well I got a bit closer. removed all nvidia drivers and installed this one: NVIDIA-Linux-x86-256.53.

Now I have smooth video and sound through HDMI for SD, 720, and some 1080(h.264). Other 1080, the sound drops out every few seconds...

Th3R00st3r Wrote:I have the revo 1600 and have a hodge podge if conf files and settings from about 6 different posts. I think I may have screwed the pooch. I get video, but when there is movement (walking across screen) I get frame drops. The audio doesn't sync up and the options in my passthrough are hdmi(ALSA), Default (Alsa) and Cutom which I put hdmi:CARD=NVidia. This all started when I did an apt-get update and apt-get upgrade.

I know all of the above is incorrect and I need a good starting point. I followed your instructions, but still get no sound. As I mentiond, I have been through a lot of threads trying to piece it together and now I believe a got confused and messed it all up.

Is there a good place to start, or should I just start over and try OpenElec?

XELOR, would you be willing to share an image of your 1600?

How about an Easeus todo backup? Where an I upload it with minimal fuss?

I am not familiar with EaseUS. I see there is a free version, would that work?
And I would have to have Win 7 Installed?

I installed EaseUS and am trying it out with my office PC. Seems like a good tool.

Let me know what you would like me to do.