How to bitstream / passthrough 5.1 audio via HDMI?

English Multimedia
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I’m trying this on Aeon at the moment, but a few weeks ago I tried the same with a Tumbleweed and a Leap system and was also stuck.

I’m looking for a way to pass through audio directly to a Denon AV receiver via HDMI. The e.g. stereo, Dolby Digital, or DTS signal is supposed to not be decoded on the computer, but sent unchanged to the receiver - the receiver then shows which format it has recognised, i.e. stereo, Dolby Digital, or DTS, and does the decoding.

What happens right now, though, is that the signal is decoded on the computer and sent as (I’m guessing) PCM streams to the receiver, which shows “Multi In”.

All three systems I have tried this with are AMD Ryzen systems, two with integrated graphics, one with a separate AMD RX 590 graphics card. To get “Multi In”, I had to go to Gnome Settings > Sound > Output Device and change from the Stereo device to the 5.1 device.

The Aeon system I’m trying this with currently, used to be a Windows 11 machine, and I remember from there that the desired behaviour only appeared after installing original AMD chipset and graphics drivers. Do I need some additional packages on OpenSUSE as well?

Any suggestions on what I could try? Is this even possible on OpenSUSE?

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Hey @Svyatko and thanks for the response. I did search around for a while and experimented with lots of things, but audio on Linux is just such a complex topic, and completely new for me. Do I mess around with ALSA, pulseaudio, pipewire? Do I manipulate applications directly or the system generally? Etc.

Just the links you sent already mention various hoops one need to make it through, e.g. “set the device to stereo to get multi-channel support, even if unintuitive”, or “if you do this one thing to mpv other applications can’t use audio anymore”, or “read the fine print about subsequent upgrade paths if you do”, etc.

That’s why I was hoping there is a solid generic configuration that makes sense on Tumbleweed (or Aeon), that is most compatible and future-proof. I was hoping somebody experienced in TW audio has a recommendation.