Graphics, sound and multimedia • canonical solution for 5.1 sound output

For the latest Raspberry Pi OS, what is the canonical solution to enabling 5.1 output for sound over HDMI? I did a google search, but all solutions seem pretty old.

Sound over HDMI works just fine on my RPi. But if I test it with the usual tools, the surround channels are mapped onto the front channels - the output is effectively stereo. This may or may not have something to do with the bandwidth limitations of HDMI when using PCM audio output (among many possible causes).

What is the canonical method for enabling 5.1 sound output over HDMI on the Raspberry Pi? Ideally this should use transparent encoding to a compressed format, so that all apps could benefit from it. The 5.1 output needs to be enabled at the OS and hardware level, as opposed to relying on apps to do tricks with the output.

Apps that only output stereo should deliver their stereo signal to the A/V receiver over HDMI. Apps that output 5.1 should be able to deliver the full 5.1 channels to the A/V receiver as well. All this should happen transparently.

I'm testing with:

- a pretty standard home A/V system that uses HDMI for all connections (PC, Playstation, etc) and the sound is 5.1 wich works great with all my other devices
- the latest Raspberry Pi OS
- a Raspberry Pi Zero 2 W

Statistics: Posted by FlorinAndrei — Mon Nov 18, 2024 6:12 pm

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