[alsa-devel] SPDIF with X-Fi

Perhaps I'm going about this the wrong way (if so, please tell me), but...

My X-Fi card is now working with the new driver. I am connected to my amplifier via a fiber optic cable. Sending standard two-channel audio to the "front" alsa plug gets directed to the spdif output and sounds great. But I want to have my full surround active - particularly for movies already encoded with dts and/or ac-3.

Thus far, I have not been able to get mplayer to send digital audio - I either get mplayer errors or silence. Once, and only once, I got xbmc to work with digital settings - never since. So I know it SHOULD be possible - I'm just missing something.

Is anyone getting this to work?