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in pavucontrol I have my output set to Digital Surround 5.1(IEC958/AC3)

When I open a video with VLC (my preferred option) OR GNOME Media player I hear no sound.

VLC is configured to use pulseaudio as the audio device.

I have noticed that if I go to the System Settings/Sound/test sound dialog, sometimes I hear a female voice saying 'Front left', 'Front right' etc, sometimes a 'bloop' noise from each speaker. Either way it causes VLC audio to kick into life on all 6 speakers.

If I then then skip a chapter, skip forward, or restart VLC I am back where I started - no sound.

Could someone explain for me what is happening, and also how I might configure my system reliably to output 5.1 Surround sound to its optical cable?

Diagnostics can be found here

Hugh Jones
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  • There are many sound trouble-shooters you could try : [Sound Troubleshooting Procedure](https://help.ubuntu.com/community/SoundTroubleshootingProcedure), or [Resolve no sound problem](http://www.unixmen.com/2012003-howto-resolve-nosound-problem-on-ubuntu/), or [Nvidia hdmi audio](http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1668737) (if it applies). Try them and let us know. – harrymc Apr 12 '15 at 17:50
  • What version of pulseaudio do you have? – Nikolai Apr 17 '15 at 06:29

1 Answers1

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This post gave me the answer I needed, though it did not explain quite what was wrong

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Hugh Jones
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