[mythtv] OT - Keeping HDMI audio link open

[Mark Perkins]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: mythtv-dev [mailto:mythtv-dev-bounces at mythtv.org] On Behalf Of
> John Veness
> Sent: Thursday, 23 June 2016 5:55 PM
> To: mythtv-dev at mythtv.org
> Subject: Re: [mythtv] OT - Keeping HDMI audio link open
> 
> On 23/06/2016 05:11, Kingsley Turner wrote:
> > hi,
> >
> > I have an annoyance with MythTV, it's not Myth, but my amplifier.
> >
> > The amp goes to some quasi-sleep-state, and takes about 2-4 seconds
> > for audio to start.
> > That's fine if it's a movie (with studio-self-promotion at the
> > beginning), but for music clips etc, it's quite a PITA as you have to
> > rewind.
> >
> > I was thinking about using the ALSA libs to write a little program
> > that continuously plays a silent clip to keep the line open. Maybe the
> > program would also look for DPMS events and stop when the screen-saver
> > comes on too.
> >
> > Does this seem to be the correct way to go about alleviating this ?
> >
> >
> > thanks,
> > -kt
> 
> You might want to look at my recent thread "HDMI keep alive, maybe via
> sending silent audio?"
> http://www.gossamer-threads.com/lists/mythtv/users/599838 where I had
> the same problem as you. I tried to fix it by periodically playing a
silent WAV
> file, which kept is alive, but then had the problem that starting playback
in
> MythTV would sometimes say that it couldn't play any audio. I didn't get
any
> further and gave up in the end, and wired up my devices differently.
> 
> I think the best software solution would be something integrated into Myth
> itself, so that it would properly start/stop the playback of silent audio
when
> going into/out of menus, but I don't know how to do that.
> 
> John
> 
> --
> John Veness, MythTV user, UK, DVB-T
> 
> _______________________________________________


John, in your testing did you try something like the solution presented here
-
https://www.tolaris.com/2011/07/03/solving-the-2-second-sound-delay-with-xbm
c-and-hdmi/

Kingsley, might work for your situation as well.

To be honest (full disclosure I have no real experience with this kind of
stuff so make of it what you will) playing silence has never really felt
'right' to me. I find it hard to image that that is what the manufacturers
of the other devices (roku et al) are doing. I did a little googling about
power saving and modules going into suspended mode and found this link
http://askubuntu.com/questions/218444/sound-output-starts-delayed which has
two proposed solutions regarding preventing audio modules from going into
sleep / power save modes.

Whether either are relevant to either of you will depend on your specific
situations of course. But they did sound promising, to me at least.
Maybe....??? Good Luck.