I really don't know what the matter with my optical sound port is and I feel a little bit desperate. In systemsettings -> multimedia SPDIF is on top and I'm getting sound with Dragonplayer and Amarok. But with VLC or Smplayer there's nothing, although the right sound device is set in preferences.

Is this an issue with KDE?

OS: OpenSuse 11.3 64bit
Alsa: 1.0.22.1
uname -r: 2.6.34.7-0.7-desktop

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hwinfo --sound
19: PCI 08.0: 0403 Audio device                                 
  [Created at pci.318]
  Unique ID: RE4e.qhAq39l2JN7
  SysFS ID: /devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:08.0
  SysFS BusID: 0000:00:08.0
  Hardware Class: sound
  Model: "nVidia MCP79 High Definition Audio"
  Vendor: pci 0x10de "nVidia Corporation"
  Device: pci 0x0ac0 "MCP79 High Definition Audio"
  SubVendor: pci 0x174b "PC Partner Limited"
  SubDevice: pci 0x437b
  Revision: 0xb1
  Driver: "HDA Intel"
  Driver Modules: "snd_hda_intel"
  Memory Range: 0xfae78000-0xfae7bfff (rw,non-prefetchable)
  IRQ: 22 (37779 events)
  Module Alias: "pci:v000010DEd00000AC0sv0000174Bsd0000437Bbc04sc03i00"
  Driver Info #0:
    Driver Status: snd_hda_intel is active
    Driver Activation Cmd: "modprobe snd_hda_intel"
  Config Status: cfg=yes, avail=yes, need=no, active=unknown

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 aplay -l
**** Liste der Hardware-Geräte (PLAYBACK) ****
Karte 0: NVidia [HDA NVidia], Gerät 0: ALC662 rev1 Analog [ALC662 rev1 Analog]
  Sub-Geräte: 1/1
  Sub-Gerät #0: subdevice #0
Karte 0: NVidia [HDA NVidia], Gerät 1: ALC662 rev1 Digital [ALC662 rev1 Digital]
  Sub-Geräte: 1/1
  Sub-Gerät #0: subdevice #0
Karte 0: NVidia [HDA NVidia], Gerät 3: NVIDIA HDMI [NVIDIA HDMI]
  Sub-Geräte: 1/1
  Sub-Gerät #0: subdevice #0

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aplay -L
null
    Discard all samples (playback) or generate zero samples (capture)
default:CARD=NVidia
    HDA NVidia, ALC662 rev1 Analog
    Default Audio Device
front:CARD=NVidia,DEV=0
    HDA NVidia, ALC662 rev1 Analog
    Front speakers
surround40:CARD=NVidia,DEV=0
    HDA NVidia, ALC662 rev1 Analog
    4.0 Surround output to Front and Rear speakers
surround41:CARD=NVidia,DEV=0
    HDA NVidia, ALC662 rev1 Analog
    4.1 Surround output to Front, Rear and Subwoofer speakers
surround50:CARD=NVidia,DEV=0
    HDA NVidia, ALC662 rev1 Analog
    5.0 Surround output to Front, Center and Rear speakers
surround51:CARD=NVidia,DEV=0
    HDA NVidia, ALC662 rev1 Analog
    5.1 Surround output to Front, Center, Rear and Subwoofer speakers
surround71:CARD=NVidia,DEV=0
    HDA NVidia, ALC662 rev1 Analog
    7.1 Surround output to Front, Center, Side, Rear and Woofer speakers
iec958:CARD=NVidia,DEV=0
    HDA NVidia, ALC662 rev1 Digital
    IEC958 (S/PDIF) Digital Audio Output
hdmi:CARD=NVidia,DEV=0
    HDA NVidia, NVIDIA HDMI
    HDMI Audio Output

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cat /proc/asound/devices
  2:        : timer
  3: [ 0- 3]: digital audio playback
  4: [ 0- 1]: digital audio playback
  5: [ 0- 1]: digital audio capture
  6: [ 0- 0]: digital audio playback
  7: [ 0- 0]: digital audio capture
  8: [ 0- 3]: hardware dependent
  9: [ 0- 0]: hardware dependent
 10: [ 0]   : control
 11:        : sequencer

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cat /etc/modprobe.d/50-sound.conf

options snd-hda-intel
# RE4e.qhAq39l2JN7:MCP79 High Definition Audio
alias snd-card-0 snd-hda-intel

Does your system happen to have Pulseaudio enabled in any form?

No, I don't. Pulse is blocked by a KDE-meta-package. I made a countercheck and installed Pulseaudio. The result was, that even Amarok was on mute.

I got some advice on the german Ubuntu board. Amarok and Dragonplayer are using Phonon und Phonon transfers to Alsa. Kaffeine don't use Phonon. So I edited xine-config et voila, SPDIF/IEC958 works.

But I need systemwide settings, I kind of priorisation. I created a /etc/sound.conf with

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cm.!default {
type hw
card 0
device 1
}
ctl.!default {
type hw
card 0
device 1
}


but it doesn't work.

These issues have been reported previously. Which Phonon backend are you using? Can you try using a different backend?