Linux sound card speaker configs

[dj_woff]

Hi All

I'm looking at setting up a Jellyfin install and I have a bit of an odd question that try as I might I never seem to be able to answer for any media player / streamer systems.

If I have my TV / Monitor plugged into a PC running Linux (Debian most likely), my speakers plugged into the PCs sound card and I'm using that with the jellyfin client application what audio configurations can I run?

Most PCs these days come with a "7.1" sound card so can the jellyfin client "decode", say an AC3 or DTS, stream from an MKV file on the server, and send it as PCM to the sound card? I can find lots of references to the codecs supported but not the destination device. Those threads that I do seem to find always feel to involve an external decoder be that a sound bar or AV Receiver, and thus I can envisage a situation where the system knows how to pass the data about and mark an HDMI audio stream appropriately but can't actually decode it due to proprietary formats, licencing, copyright etc to send to the local speakers

I ask as I have a high channel count sound card on my system and thus spacial sound systems like Atmos and DTS:X would be easy and I could make use of the active studio monitors I have already. Whereas buying an AV receiver would involve a lot of doubling up and buying new speakers.

Thanks

[TheDreadPirate]

If the speakers are directly connected to the sound card, Jellyfin Media Player should just use them if the default audio device is the sound card. JMP should direct play just about all audio formats. I'm not aware of an audio format it won't direct play.

And, yes, it would decode whatever format the media is using to PCM before sending to the sound card.

JMP also should also downmix to your stereo speaker setup. I use an external USB DAC and amp to powered studio monitors. No issues with center or surround channels not outputting.

I'm on PopOS, btw, so just confirming my experience with JMP on a Linux system should be the same as yours.