Because I’ve been searching my ass off for these settings, I decided to help my fellow xbmc lovers.

Problem: you can set the HDMI setting in xbmc, but the sound won’t pump through it.

You can find all sorts of information on the internet like recompile alsa from scratch, fiddle with config files, etc. but nothing works.

Solution: stop messing about and enable the setting in the bios:

Please note:  You have to enable ‘Onboard HDMI HD Audio’ which is turned off in the picture ;)

After that it usually works ‘out of the box’ like so (sorry for the Dutch, but you’ll get the message):

If it still doesn’t work, you probably need to fiddle with the ‘Preferences’ -> ‘Sound Preferences’ on your Ubuntu Desktop (if you have one ;) ).

It took me two days to find the setting in the bios…