[Nmarconi]

I thought i would post the steps i took to finally get the Dynex DX-SC51 sound card ($25 at bestbuy, but can be had online for about 15) working with Toslink optical spdif out (without any video's playing at 2x fps). First, it is working about 99% correctly now - AC-3 (DD and DTS) passthrough is good, mp3 playback is good - I am only missing system sounds from the skin (which are playing through the analog out, not spdif). I will edit this post if I get that fixed - but really all I needed was the digital passthrough and mp3's working. Here are the steps i took (well ... leaving out all the junk that didnt work) Sorry if its overly detailed concerning tasks most of you already know how to do - but this may help some other noobs.

1. Disable onboard sound (from bios)

2. Unmute ICE958 in alsamixer (press ctl-F2 once xbmc starts, type "xbmc" [enter],"xbmc" [enter],"alsamixer" [enter] - then scroll to the right and find the 3 ICE958 choices - make sure the 1rst and 3rd say "PCM Out" by highlighting them and pressing the up/down arrows. Make sure the middle one has "00" not "MM" - toggle this by pressing "m" on the keyboard. Exit with [esc]. Get back into xbmc by pressing ctl-F7

3. Configure audio hardware in xbmc. Goto Settings-System-Audio Hardware. Set audio output to digital, change both the audio output device and passthrough output device to "plugpdif"

wow - seems a lot faster than the 2 days it took me to get it working. Hope this helps someone.

[lcapriotti]

Tks for the report, much appreciated!