[mythtv] Myth TV problems

Ray mythtv-dev@snowman.net
Mon, 2 Dec 2002 08:45:26 -0700


On Mon, Dec 02, 2002 at 09:56:02AM -0500, Doug Wiltanger wrote:
> I've been working on getting this working for a week now.  And I'm fairly
> certain I have it configured the way it needs to be.  But something isn't
> quite right...
> 
> I have 2 problems.

IMHO these are probably just one problem... get the sound working and the
freeze will probably go away.

> 
> First is when I select Live TV to watch, it'll tune to the default channel
> that I selected.  But once I attempt to change the channel the screen
> freezes.   I have to kill mythfrontend to get to work again.
> 

> Second problem is I get an error about unable to open /dev/dsp when I
> start to watch live tv.  I'm guessing that my alsa driver doesn't support
> the full duplex ablity of my card.

That would be my first guess, but maybe you could list the exact error,
particularly the bit that comes just after "unable to open /dev/dsp"?  Also,
do you in fact HAVE a /dev/dsp?  What are it's permissions?

>  Any suggestions other than a new card?

<SNIP>

> I can also play wave files in KDE without any problems.

By default KDE (at least some versions) run a sound server called arts.  You
can and probably should disable that for now since it takes over access of
the sound card.

> I'm running Mandrake 9.0 with an ATI TV Wonder Tuner.  Sound card is a Sound
> Blast AWE 64. 

I could be wrong but I think this card DOES support full duplex under Linux
so I don't think you'll have to replace it.  Maybe you don't have the alsa pcm
modules loaded or maybe your system is using devfs.  I havn't used devfs but
I think that would make your dsp device something like /dev/audio/dsp rather
than /dev/dsp.

-- 
Ray