Arch Linux

momo.reina

Member

Registered: 2012-02-23

Posts: 66

[SOLVED] ALSA woes: Setting VLC alsa-audio-device & Flash audio

I managed to get VLC audio running but I had to hard code this part into vlcrc:

alsa-audio-device=plughw:0,0

My current system settings are:

➜  /boot  aplay -l
**** List of PLAYBACK Hardware Devices ****
card 0: PCH [HDA Intel PCH], device 0: ALC292 Analog [ALC292 Analog]
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 1: HDMI [HDA Intel HDMI], device 3: HDMI 0 [HDMI 0]
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 1: HDMI [HDA Intel HDMI], device 7: HDMI 1 [HDMI 1]
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 1: HDMI [HDA Intel HDMI], device 8: HDMI 2 [HDMI 2]
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0

~/.asoundrc

➜  /boot  cat ~/.asoundrc 
pcm.!default {
             type hw
             card PCH
}

ctl.!default {
             type hw
             card PCH
}                

Is there anyway to use the card name for the

alsa-audio-device

variable instead of hard-coding the sound card address? Sort of how like in asoundrc I can just use PCH instead of the card address.

Skype works fine out of the box with my current settings, but with VLC I have to use this work-around. Flash videos in Firefox (youtube) don't work at all....

Last edited by momo.reina (2014-05-18 07:01:10)

emeres

Member

Registered: 2013-10-08

Posts: 1,570

Re: [SOLVED] ALSA woes: Setting VLC alsa-audio-device & Flash audio

What do you mean with hard code? As far as I see it, it is just another setting.
Since VLC accepts

alsa-audio-device=plughw:0,0

it should also accept:

alsa-audio-device=plughw:PCH

However if you set up VLC to use alsa, then your default device, which is already PCH, will be used. If not, this should work:

alsa-audio-device=default

Note that you are using direct addressing or raw communication, that will block any other sound send to PCH, while one application is using it.

momo.reina

Member

Registered: 2012-02-23

Posts: 66

Re: [SOLVED] ALSA woes: Setting VLC alsa-audio-device & Flash audio

alsa-audio-device=plughw:PCH

This is what I was looking for.

However if you set up VLC to use alsa, then your default device, which is already PCH, will be used. If not, this should work:

alsa-audio-device=default

Note that you are using direct addressing or raw communication, that will block any other sound send to PCH, while one application is using it.

Yes I saw this on the wiki, but was unable to make anything work without direct addressing. I found out later that I setup the sound card on both `alsa-base.conf` and `.asoundrc` which were conflicting, I got rid of `.asoundrc` and kept the `alsa-base.conf` settings, now VLC works with the `alsa-audio-device=default`.

Thanks.

emeres

Member

Registered: 2013-10-08

Posts: 1,570

Re: [SOLVED] ALSA woes: Setting VLC alsa-audio-device & Flash audio

You could have also used:

defaults.pcm.card "PCH"; defaults.ctl.card "PCH";

With modprobe it is recommended to use vid and pid, especially in your case, since both sound cards use snd-hda-intel.