XBMC configuration screenshots

Here is a screenshot of the settings used to get sound working in XBMC from the HDMI connection on my GPU (NVidia GT430).

To find the correct name for the card, I used the command

$aplay -l

**** List of PLAYBACK Hardware Devices ****
card 0: SB [HDA ATI SB], device 0: ALC889A Analog [ALC889A Analog]
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 0: SB [HDA ATI SB], device 1: ALC889A Digital [ALC889A 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 0 [HDMI 0]
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 1: NVidia [HDA NVidia], device 8: HDMI 0 [HDMI 0]
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 1: NVidia [HDA NVidia], device 9: HDMI 0 [HDMI 0]
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0

It was important for me to do it this way rather than simply a card number because these numbers can change on reboot.

Each card/device combination was tested using

$ aplay -D plughw:1,9 /usr/share/sounds/alsa/Front_Center.wav

until sound was heard. The important part in the above command is "plughw:1,9" which is the card number and device number from the ****List of PLAYBACK Hardware Devices****, respectively.

Once this was working, the card number can be replaced by the name of the card. For me, I replaced "1" with "Nvidia" to give the command

$ aplay -D plughw:NVidia,9 /usr/share/sounds/alsa/Front_Center.wav

I then used this information in my XBMC settings.

Notice the information is being used in the Custom audio device section.