The VideoLAN Forums

Hello,
I've got multiple audio/sound devices installed in my computer.
That is 2 PCI Soundcards, 1 onboard chip and the HDMI/DVI audio multiplexer of my Radeon HD graphics card.
For normal PC work, Windows is set up to use one of the PCI Soundcards. But for video play I want VLC Media Player to use the HDMI Output.
I thought the correct way to set this up would be via the advanced settings menu, choosing directx as audio module, guessing the right output device via its number. But changing the number of the output device doesn't change anything at all. Neither on the fly nor by saving, stopping playback and restarting it.
(That's the way you switch the DirectX Audio Playback device in several other applications as on the fly switching seems impossible due to restrictions by directx)

What's wrong in my approach, am I doing something wrong or did I just misunderstand the meaning of above settings?
If I'm doing something wrong or the approach seems to be correct at least, how do I find out the assignment of sounddevice name to sounddevice number without searching in the depth of directx (I know there must be a way to find out via the directx api, but I'm not eager to program a fully overblown tool for that purpose)

Neither on the fly nor by saving, stopping playback and restarting it.
(That's the way you switch the DirectX Audio Playback device in several other applications as on the fly switching seems impossible due to restrictions by directx)

What's wrong in my approach, am I doing something wrong or did I just misunderstand the meaning of above settings?

You need to quit VLC and run it again before VLC reassigns the DirectX output.

If I'm doing something wrong or the approach seems to be correct at least, how do I find out the assignment of sounddevice name to sounddevice number without searching in the depth of directx (I know there must be a way to find out via the directx api, but I'm not eager to program a fully overblown tool for that purpose)

Just look at the waveout device pick list in VLC settings : waveout devices are named and listed in the same order as DirectX devices.

Won't work for me.
I've done as you said. Assigned the directx module, chose some soundevice number, close vlc, start a new file. Audio Playback always comes from the same Windows Standard Device.
On the other hand if i choose waveout as audio module and choose the device it works as desired.

The order might be little different. And default device is listed twice. I try to add number to messages to make this little easier.

Won't work for me.
I've done as you said. Assigned the directx module, chose some soundevice number, close vlc, start a new file. Audio Playback always comes from the same Windows Standard Device.
On the other hand if i choose waveout as audio module and choose the device it works as desired.

If ever you had installed Winamp or you could install it, you should go to Winamp settings, browse to Plugins > Output, then select directX output and configure. You will see a list of devices with both a number and a name (eg. 02: Soundcard HD audio). The number is incremented by 1 in Winamp i.e. Windows default device is 01 instead of 0 in VLC. So, if the device you want to use is listed as 0n in Winamp, select n-1 in VLC !

The order might be little different. And default device is listed twice. I try to add number to messages to make this little easier.

The thing with the double occurence is known to me. The default device should presumably be listed as MS Soundmapper (e.g. Default Audio Device in Winamp) and again as itself.

If ever you had installed Winamp or you could install it, you should go to Winamp settings, browse to Plugins > Output, then select directX output and configure. You will see a list of devices with both a number and a name (eg. 02: Soundcard HD audio). The number is incremented by 1 in Winamp i.e. Windows default device is 01 instead of 0 in VLC. So, if the device you want to use is listed as 0n in Winamp, select n-1 in VLC !

Thank you very much for that Tipp. It was not the key to my problems, but nice to know.

The real solution:
The ATI HDMI Output Audio Device is only listed when the display is working. Since my graphics card and my tv have some trouble I need to disable and reenable the HDMI/DVI Output every time I start windows. When doing it in the wrong order vlc will not know the hdmi output and therefore I can choose any device in the list without getting what I want.