I use a separate miccus bluetooth transmitter connected by a headphone cable and RCA adapter so that I can listen to my television or pc. Presently I have adapted a bit of magic that modified my original setup which had two outputs reaching the transmitter but that had a side-effect (60-cycle?) hum and was a mild hassle in general.
Instead of connecting the output of the headphone jack of my 4k PiP-capable monitor to the transmitter, I attach it to the mic port on my PC. The line out port of my motherboard remains attached to the transmitter by way of an RCA adapter as it had originally. The final piece of the puzzle is a very cool utility called umix which is a simple non-graphical audio mixer.
UMIX(1) Sound Utilities UMIX(1)
NAME
umix - adjust soundcard mixers
SYNOPSIS
umix [channel volume|left:right][R|P][+|-] device] [-r driver] [-f
configpath] [-ghilqsv]
DESCRIPTION
umix is a program for adjusting soundcard mixers. With it you can
adjust your soundcard volumes, balances and recording sources. It can
be used flexibly from the command-line, or from an interactive user
interface.
You can save your soundcard volumes to a file, and load them
afterwards, for example when when booting the machine.
Channel names are used to specify the volume you want to adjust. You
can check what channels are supported with the -q option. Channel names
can also be shortened if they have enough distinctive letters to
identify the channel, eg. 'volume' can be shortened to 'vol'. If
channel name is specified as all , all available channels are set to
the specified value.
For each channel specified, volume is the volume you want to set, with
both left and right specified as the same, or in left:right format.
You can also specify optional + or - after the volume for increasing or
decreasing the volume for channel, with amount volume. The optional
R or P at the end of the channel argument sets the channel as a current
recording source or normal play, respectively. You can use both upper-
and lowercase letters.
You can slide volumes smoothly in steps from one point to another. The
format is following: startvol,endvol,steps,delay. Here startvol is the
volume you want to slide the volume from, and endvol is the volume you
want to increase or decrease in steps to. Optional parameter steps
specifies the number of steps between the two volumes, and delay the
delay between two steps. Default values for steps is 20, and 20ms for
delay. The optional + or - have no effect when sliding volumes.
The delay can be between 0 and 5 seconds, specified in milliseconds.
Maximum value for steps is the difference between the starting and
destination volume, so that the minimum raise or decrease in one step
is always 1.
All volume settings are parsed the same, so you can use sliding in your
config file too, you just have to edit the config manually. For
example the line
pcm 0,100,25,50
in your config file would slide the volume of 'pcm' from 0 to 100 in 25
steps and with a 50 ms delay when loading settings.
Umix needs read and write permissions to the mixer device. I suggest
that you create a group for this and change permissions so that group
has write and read access to the devices, then add necessary users to
that group.
OPTIONS
-q, --query
Query and print all active channel volumes and stats from all
available devices. Interactive UI is not started.
-l, --load
Load previously saved settings from configpath. If configpath
is specified as '-', settings are loaded from standard input.
Clears the -i option.
-s, --save
Save current mixer settings to configpath. If configpath is
specified as '-', settings are printed to standard output.
Clears the -i option.
-f configpath, --file=configpath
Specify the file used to read and save settings. Defaults to
/etc/umixrc. Sets the -i option.
-d device, --device=device
Specify the device used. Defaults to /dev/mixer. Sets the -i
option.
-r driver, --driver=driver
Specify the driver used. Defaults to OSS. Sets the -i option.
-i, --interactive
Start interactive user interface after processing non-
interactive command-line options.
-g, --globals
Print current global options. This is useful for finding out
what is the default device etc.
-h, --help
Display help and exit.
-v, --version
Display version information and exit.
EXAMPLES
umix -q
Prints all volumes of active channels and their stats. The
output should be self-explanatory.
umix volume 100 bass 88 treble 80 pcm 94
Sets the volume to 100, bass to 88, treble to 80 and PCM to 94.
umix vol 100:80 syn 90:30
Here channel names are shortened and stereo settings are used.
Sets volume`s left to 100, right to 80 and synth`s left to 90
and right to 30.
umix bass 20- pcm 20:10+ ogain 40:45-
Here volumes are incremented or decremented from their original
values. Decreases bass by 20, increases PCM`s left by 20 and
right by 10 and the last one decreases output gain`s left by 40
and right by 45.
umix mic R synth 20P line 10p-
This sets the mic as a recording source, synth as normal play
with volume 20 and line as normal play with volume decreased by
10.
umix pcm 0,60,30,25 vol 100,70 synth 50:50,25:50
Here sliding is demonstrated. The first slides pcm from 0 to 60
with 30 steps and a 25 ms delay, then slides vol from 100 to 70
with default steps and delay and the last one slides synth from
50:50 to 25:50.
umix -f /some/path/umixrc -l
Here the config path is specified as /some/path/umixrc and
settings are loaded from that file.
umix -d /dev/mixer2 -f /somepath/umsettings
The device that is used for mixing is specified as /dev/mixer2,
config path is set as /somepath/umsettings and the interactive
user interface is automatically started, because. -f and -d set
the -i option.
NCURSES USER INTERFACE
The (n)curses based user interface. Designed to be used from a console
or x-terminal.
USAGE
On the left side is the channel menu, which consists of channel names,
stats and volumes. On the right side is the balance menu. The
currently chosen channel is indicated with highlighting its name and
drawing arrows around the chosen menu. You can move around with
default vi/emacs/arrow keys.
Moving up and down selects the current channel, moving left and right
adjusts the volume or balance, depending on which menu you are in. Tab
toggles between volume and balance menus.
If the channel does not support stereo mixing (it`s left and right
values cannot differ), then a '|' at center of the balance is drawn.
KEY BINDINGS
j / ^n / arrow down
Move down.
k / ^p / arrow up
Move up.
h / ^b / arrow left
Decrease volume / balance left.
l / ^f / arrow right
Increase volume / balance right.
] / . Increase volume by fifth of maximum amount.
[ / , Decrease volume by fifth of maximum amount.
Tab Toggle between volume and balance menus.
Space Toggle play / record source.
L Load settings.
S Save settings.
f Specify the config path. This presents a dialog in the lower
border. If no string is given, the path remains unchanged.
e Enter channel volume manually for the current channel. Same
rules apply as with command-line channel settings, so you can
set balances and recording sources too.
n Cycles through available mixer devices. You can see the
currently active mixer and the total number of initialized
mixers in the top border.
m Mutes all those channels that are not already mute. If pressed
again, returns volumes back to the state before muting.
x Excludes the current channel. Same as m but only with the
current channel.
H Displays the help.
q Exit the program.
^l Refresh the screen.
CONFIG FILE
The config consists of global options and mixer settings. Global
options come after the keyword [global]. Global options are read
before loading any mixer settings or parsing command-line options.
Global options are the defaults to use if no command-line options are
given.
Mixer settings come after the keyword [mixers]. The mixer device that
settings are loaded for is specified with the keyword mixer. The
string after mixer= is the path of the mixer device. Then comes the
settings for that mixer. These are parsed like command-line options.
Comments and all other characters are ignored.
FILES
/etc/umixrc
The default configuration file.
$HOME/.umixrc
Used as the config file if exists.
BUGS
When used with terminals that have columns below 35, the output is not
optimal with the ncurses UI.
If the number of channels is greater than number of lines on screen,
you cannot adjust channels that exceed the number of lines in the
ncurses UI (rare, but to be fixed soon)
AUTHOR
Sakari Lehtonen <sakari@ionstream.fi>
08 Jun 2002 UMIX(1)
Now if I switch sources entirely on my monitor, or use the picture-in-picture function to watch a TV show (or hockey game) in the smaller window, I can hear both the TV and my PC if I so choose, as long as I set the audio source of my monitor properly such as to tell it to use the source port for the small picture as audio source. This also allows me a much easier method to silence (or adjust the volume) of the television program while in a commercial break by use of the mixer application instead of needing to toggle it on the monitor itself which I might move slightly out of reach. Additionally, I can easily mute all of my application sound when I choose to only view a TV program.
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