[mythtv-users] Just can't lick this sound issue

[Douglas Phillipson]

Joseph A. Caputo wrote:
> On Monday 24 November 2003 11:02, Douglas Phillipson wrote:
> 
>>Joseph A. Caputo wrote:
>>
>>>On Monday 24 November 2003 02:46, Douglas Phillipson wrote:
>>>
>>>>Douglas Phillipson wrote:
>>>>
>>>>>Installed MythTV from apt-get install mythtv-suite.  Using Redhat
>>>>>9, NVidia Gforce4, WinTV Go capture card.
>>>>>
>>>>>My backend is on the same machine as my frontend.  Recording is
>>>>>taking place.  I can see the recordings in lower left of screen
>>>>>when I'm in "Watch Recordings".  When I choose to play a recording
>>>>>or try watching live TV I get a blank screen.  I have "Video
>>>>>player" set to "mplayer -fs %s".
>>>>>
>>>>>Question:  What does MythTV use to play live TV and playback
>>>>>recorded video?  Is it Mplayer?  What???  My xawtv works fine.
>>>>>
>>>>>What am I missing?
>>>>>
>>>>>Thanks
>>>>>
>>>>>Doug P
>>>>
>>>>I discovered I had to install Xine, sorry about that.  Now i can
>>>>playback a recorded video (no sound yet)  I hear sound during the
>>>>recording in the lineout jack of the WinTV Go board though.  But I
>>>>still can't watch Live TV, screen goes black.  Any suggestions are
>>>>appreciated...
>>
>>I saw xine, ogle mentioned in a step by step guide
>>(http://pvrhw.goldfish.org/tiki-page.php?pageName=rh9pvr250) and just
>>installed it.  When I did my playback (video only) started working so
>>I thought...
>>That was my problem, I thought...  Should my Hauppage 190 be similar
>>to the PVR250 as far as this install is concerned?
> 
> 
> No, the WinTV-GO is just a regular V4L (Video4Linux) card with no 
> hardware encoding.
> 
> 
> 
>>I'm curious, why was an "internal player" used/created instead of one
>>of the many available?  I hope that's not a dumb question.
> 
> 
> Well, first of all, Myth records in a 'tweaked' NuppelVideo format that 
> isn't natively supported by external players, and second, having an 
> internal format & player allows better control over playback features 
> (bookmarks, commercial skip, etc).
> 
> 
> 
>>>Whatever gave you the idea you needed to install Xine or mplayer? 
>>>Myth uses its own internal player to play back recorded programs. 
>>>You only need an external player if you want to play back non-Myth
>>>content using the MythVideo plugin.
>>>
>>>The reason you can't watch LiveTV is likely because your sound card
>>>or driver doesn't support (or isn't configured properly for) full
>>>duplex.
>>
>>Is sound required to see the video?
> 
> 
> The frontend basically blocks on trying to open the sound device.  If it 
> can't open the sound device, it won't start playback, hence a black 
> screen.  There are two likely reasons why this might be happening.  One 
> reason (and the most common) is that you're running Gnome or KDE and 
> need to disable or kill the sound daemon (esd in Gnome; artsd in KDE); 
> other processes like mythfrontend can't access the sound device for 
> output while another app (esd/artsd) already has it open for output.  
> The other possibility is that your sound card or driver doesn't support 
> full duplex (i.e., simultaneous record & playback).  In LiveTV, what's 
> happening is the live feed is being recorded & encoded and then 
> immediately played back.  So, if your card isn't doing full duplex, 
> then the frontend can't open the device because the backend already has 
> it open for recording.
> 
> 
> 
>>>The reason you have no sound when you play back a recording is
>>>likely because your recordings have no sound (i.e., your sound is
>>>mis-configured for Myth).
>>
>>I'm now hearing sound when I attempt live watching, so I thought I
>>had sound licked...
> 
> 
> But is your sound out of sync, as in a couple of seconds ahead of the 
> video?
> 
> 
> 
>>>Read the section in the docs about troubleshooting audio (http://
>>>www.mythtv.org/docs/mythtv-HOWTO-7.html and
>>>http://www.mythtv.org/docs/ mythtv-HOWTO-20.html#ss20.11 & try to
>>>get your audio configured properly.
>>>
>>>-JAC
>>>
>>>PS- In future, it would be helpful to submit your system specs when
>>>asking for help.  Include things like: motherboard, CPU, sound
>>>card, video card, Linux distro, sound drivers, video card, tuner
>>>card, version of Myth & source of Myth (i.e., RPM, Deb, source
>>>tarball or CVS)
>>
>>OK, Thanks I'll keep plugging away at it and post my resulting
>>successful procedure.  And thankyou VERY much for the support!  Are
>>you the author of any of this great stuff?
> 
> 
> Sorry, I didn't see your specs at the top of your original post... but 
> you haven't indicated what kind of sound card you have or whether 
> you're using ALSA or OSS.  This is important information when 
> troubleshooting audio!
> 
> -JAC

Well I've jacked my sound all up.  I have VIA VT82xx audio on mobo. 
Does Redhat 9 use ALSA or OSS by default?  Anyway I installed 
alsa-drivers, alsa-lib, alsa-utils from source, no errors.  Changed 
/etc/modules.conf according to the alsa site's specs:

# ALSA portion
alias char-major-116 snd
alias snd-card-0 snd-via82xx
# module options should go here

# OSS/Free portion
alias char-major-14 soundcore
alias sound-slot-0 snd-card-0

# card #1
alias sound-service-0-0 snd-mixer-oss
alias sound-service-0-1 snd-seq-oss
alias sound-service-0-3 snd-pcm-oss
alias sound-service-0-8 snd-seq-oss
alias sound-service-0-12 snd-pcm-oss

then did "modprobe snd-via82xx" and get: Initmodule: no such device.


If RH 9 already used alsa should I have even installed alsa?

Confused but thankful for you experts...

Doug P