pulseaudio doesn't support SPDIF passthrough

It is possible to get passthrough working, in Karmic if I want to use passthrough I have to go into the audio applet and set the Profile to 'Analog Stereo Output' (I'm guessing this forces pulse to release it's lock on the digital output) and then adjust the options for whatever mediaplayer to use Alsa directly and ensure the passthrough option is checked.

This is still unacceptable as you have to keep switching the output profile and obviously isn't obvious to the end user. I feel the lack of proper passthrough support is really hurting Ubuntu as a modern multimedia capable OS, it definitely renders it almost useless as a media centre type PC. This reason alone makes Pulseaudio a step backwards from Alsa in my opinion.

This bug was fixed in the package pulseaudio - 1:1.0-0ubuntu1

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pulseaudio (1:1.0-0ubuntu1) oneiric; urgency=low

  [ David Henningsson ]
  * Fix "Parse failure" error with remote sources/sinks,
    thanks to Martin-Eric Racine for reporting/testing! (LP: #852902)
  * Fix crash when dbus module does not load (LP: #855729)
  * Add more bug fixes from upstream git

  [ Daniel T Chen ]
  * debian/copyright: Update all shipped sources
  * Various xcb_*() bugs already fixed in Sep 2010 (LP: #642030,
    LP: #646583, LP: #646616, LP: #648104)
  * Passthrough is supported in 1.0 (LP: #448024)
  * PulseAudio + alsa-plugins route through PulseAudio by default
    (LP: #378382)

  [ Luke Yelavich ]
  * New upstream bugfix release
    - vala: Add has_type_id=false to all enums, structs and classes
    - module-switch-on-connect: Don't switch unlinked sink input and source
      outputs
    - alsa-mixer: Set "Front" control to 0 dB on headphone path
    - module-equalizer-sink: Use %z for printf of size_t variables
    - module-equalizer-sink: Use = in initialising variables
    - bluetooth/sbc: Use __asm__ keyword
    - module-equalizer-sink: Use correct limit in loop
    - Squash the last gcc warnings
    - Make gcc --std=c99 happy
    - device-restore: Simplify the migration of data to per-port keys.
    - stream-restore: Add in some variable sets that were missing from 9ffa93.
    - stream-restore: Add proper data validity checks to the legacy database
      entry read.
    - formats: The format code should be in libpulse, not libpulsecommon
    - formats: Export more functions needed for a clean build.
    - device-restore: Fix use-after-free error.
    - raop: Use the port supplied by avahi when connecting to RAOP devices.
    - loopback: New modargs: sink_input_properties and
      source_output_properties.
    - bluetooth: Bump DBus version to 1.3.0 and drop conditional code.
    - alsa: Tidy up argument descriptions
    - module-suspend-on-idle: Move vacuum code to core
    - alsa-mixer: Add support for the Microsoft Kinect Sensor device
    - modargs: Ensure modargs can be accessed in their raw form.
    - raop: Properly deal with the name coming from the device.
    - build-sys: Oops forgot to add the Kinect profile to the build system.
    - volume: Rename 'sync volume' to 'deferred volume'.
    - raop: Don't crash if fd is not open when trying to close it
    - doc: Update README with fresh links.
    - doc: Add info about running pulseaudio from the build dir
    - stream: Relax assert for extended API
    - def: Hide server-side sink/source flags
    - volume: Handle varying channel count for shared volumes
    - virtual: Make volume sharing on by default
    - equalizer: Use volume sharing by default
    - echo-cancel: Use volume sharing by default
    - sink,source: Avoid crash by not updating volume on shutdown
    - conf: Make sure module-dbus-protocol is loaded after
      module-default-device-restore
    - build-sys: bump soname
    - sink,source: Handle missing in the shared volume case
    - dbus: Don't crash if the module does not load
    - Fix crash in threaded message queues
    - build-sys: Switch to the tar-us...