HTPC sound configuration

[NickMate]

Basically here what I have. I have a HTPC (media portal) connected to my tv. I would like to watch tv shows through my tv speakers but when I want to listen to music or play film/games I have headphones connected to receiver which is connected to the HTPC via toslink. Is there a way to automatically switch?
I have an optical switch (my receiver only has one optical) so if I turn off the receiver, meaning no optical signal, can or will it switch back to default tv speakers and via versa?.

[prerich]

Originally Posted by NickMate

Basically here what I have. I have a HTPC (media portal) connected to my tv. I would like to watch tv shows through my tv speakers but when I want to listen to music or play film/games I have headphones connected to receiver which is connected to the HTPC via toslink. Is there a way to automatically switch?
I have an optical switch (my receiver only has one optical) so if I turn off the receiver, meaning no optical signal, can or will it switch back to default tv speakers and via versa?.

No way to automatically switch because yo have to change the default in your sound card driver.

[pentatonic]

Just curious, how are you connected to your tv? Because if you're using hdmi through your video card I think both can be on at the same time. (I might be wrong but I know that on my pc I have the analog outs of my sound card to my receiver and optical from my onboard to some cheap monitors at the same time and they both work.

[Trogdor2010]

Originally Posted by pentatonic

Just curious, how are you connected to your tv? Because if you're using hdmi through your video card I think both can be on at the same time. (I might be wrong but I know that on my pc I have the analog outs of my sound card to my receiver and optical from my onboard to some cheap monitors at the same time and they both work.

AMD cards past the HD 5000 series have Sound drivers out of the box, built into the PCI-E board. You can even use the DVI ports to output sound (provided you use a dvi-hdmi connector).

NVidia cards can output sound from DVI/HDMI, but it requires a special S/PDIF output to plug into the motherboard, but it's basically the same thing.

One option is that if you TV/ sound system has a headphone jack, you can plug in to your TV to output audio.

No way to automatically switch because yo have to change the default in your sound card driver.

I'd like to note: Whenever I plug in my turtle beach headset to my gaming rig, which outputs 5.1 LPCM audio from analog connectors, the sound drivers switch directly to the headphones. Keep in mind the sound drivers were built into the motherboard (realtek HD).

[NickMate]

Originally Posted by pentatonic

Just curious, how are you connected to your tv? Because if you're using hdmi through your video card I think both can be on at the same time. (I might be wrong but I know that on my pc I have the analog outs of my sound card to my receiver and optical from my onboard to some cheap monitors at the same time and they both work.

It's connected via hdmi so the only way I can solve this is to send it both ways and when I'm using headphones, lower the volume on the tv.
Also, I'm using the receiver from my PX5

[pentatonic]

Originally Posted by NickMate

It's connected via hdmi so the only way I can solve this is to send it both ways and when I'm using headphones, lower the volume on the tv.
Also, I'm using the receiver from my PX5

Ok, well that's not so bad, just have to hit mute on the remote, no biggie.

[NickMate]

Originally Posted by pentatonic

Ok, well that's not so bad, just have to hit mute on the remote, no biggie.

Yer, think I solved that then. Haha hopefully my computer will behave and not mess around half through a film

[octagon]

Originally Posted by NickMate

Basically here what I have. I have a HTPC (media portal) connected to my tv. I would like to watch tv shows through my tv speakers but when I want to listen to music or play film/games I have headphones connected to receiver which is connected to the HTPC via toslink. Is there a way to automatically switch?
I have an optical switch (my receiver only has one optical) so if I turn off the receiver, meaning no optical signal, can or will it switch back to default tv speakers and via versa?.

When you say watch tv do you mean use MediaPortal's tuner/dvr functions?

I haven't played with MediaPortal in a while but I'm pretty sure you can select different audio devices for tv and movies which means you should be able to select the hdmi output for the tv server and the optical output for movies/music.