[MPlayer-users] .asoundrc ignored when playing 6ch audio

[Nicolas George]

Le quintidi 15 messidor, an CCXVII, Robert Henney a écrit :
> seems like each of the cards in my system has a "surround51" defined, which 
> I can see is a problem if mplayer is opening the first thing with the 
> name "surround51".  I was under the assumption that once you made a card
> default, it would be the one used for any open.

That is not how ALSA works. You did not "make a card the default", you
defined a card (more precisely a pcm and a ctl) called "default", overriding
any previously defined card with the same name. You could have called it
anyway you like: the name "default" is not technically special for ALSA.

When an ALSA application opens a pcm, it has to provide a name. The
documentation states that the name should be "default" unless the
application has a good reason to use another pcm. The canonical good reason
is "the user said so", but any application can define whatever it considers
a good reason.

Mplayer considers that playing 6-channels content is a good reason to try
and use "surround51" instead as "default". I tend to agree with that, as it
allowed me to set up ALSA differently for stereo and surround contents.

You just have to override "surround51" exactly as you overrode "default".

Regards,

-- 
  Nicolas George