[Haggy]

So here we go:

hdmi:CARD=NVidia,DEV=0
HDA NVidia, NVIDIA HDMI
HDMI Audio Output

"hdmi" is esentially just an alias or "readable name" for the device/subdevice combination of your hdmi port. aplay -l shows you that it's device 0, subdevice 3 - so that corresponds to hw:0,3. In your case "hdmi" is exactly the same as "hw:0,3", just another word for it (and less prone to fail if given away as a hint in a forum post, that's the reason i don't like it that much).

The "plug"-part is something different: It tell ALSA (the soundsystem) to use software resampling of PCM data before sending it to the output. That way samplerates not natively supported by your Hardware get resampled into something compatible. This is useful for the youtube plugin f.e. Regarding the device it's again the same: "plughw:0,3" is exactly the same as "plug:hdmi".

My suggestion for hdmi/iec958 audio settings in xbmc therefore is

Code:

Default audio device: plug:hdmi (because you may need the resampling backend for some files)
Passthrough device: hdmi (because you want a bitperfect stream if your receiving hdmi device is capable of doing the decoding work)

Hope that clears things up a bit.