After a lot of searching and going through nearly every forum I have my sound via HDMI. And my solution was very simple.

But before I start, I will give an overview of my system:
  • Mainboard: Point Of View 330 (ION chipset with Atom 330)
  • Main display: Dell 17” LCD (1280x1024 60Hz)
  • TV connected via HDMI: Sony Brave KDL-37EX500 (1920x1200 60Hz)
  • OS: Ubuntu 10.04
  • Ubuntu: XBMC version 9.11 installed
  • Ubuntu: ALSA installed
  • Video: NVidia v195.36.15 (using TwinView)

Ubuntu sound settings

Sound settings (System -> Preferences -> Sound) do not interfere the XBMC sound output. XBMC is using its own sound output.

Alsamixer

The only thing what I was not aware off, was a setting in alsamixer.

Start a terminal and do the following:

$ sudo alsamixer
  • Press ‘F3’ to see only the sound outputs (playback)
  • Use the right-arrow to go: “S/PDIF 1”
  • Press ’m’ to unmute this device.
  • Press Escape to leave the alsamixer

XBMC sound settings

To set the sound settings to HDMI output you have to do the following:

Go to menu: System -> System -> Audio output

  • Audio output: Digital
  • Dolby Digital (AC3) capable receiver: Not active
  • DTS Capable Receiver: Not active
  • Audio output device: custom
  • Custom audio device: hdmi
  • Passthrough output device: hdmi
  • Downmix multichannel audio to stereo: Active

Press ‘s’ and exit XBMC

Startup XBMC

Remark! XBMC sound settings are not directly used by XBMC. You have to restart XBMC before the settings will be used!

Now you should have sound on your TV via HDMI.