[mythtv-users] remote frontend audio problem

Michael T. Dean mtdean at thirdcontact.com
Fri Dec 2 16:12:35 EST 2005


Daryl Williams wrote:

> folks, i am having a difficult time getting the audio to work on my 
> remote (diskless) frontend.
> i believe i have alsa working correctly, as alsaplayer will play just 
> fine. if i set the audio output
> device to "ALSA:default" and the mixer device to "default"  i get the 
> message: "Unable to set ALSA parameters"
> on the screen and mythfrontend reports:
>
> 2005-12-02 09:50:45.098 Using protocol version 15
> 2005-12-02 09:50:45.845 Killing AudioOutputDSP
> 2005-12-02 09:50:45.847 Opening audio device 'default'.
> 2005-12-02 09:50:45.865 in SetParameters(format=2, channels=2, 
> rate=32000, buffer_time=500000, period_time=125000)
> 2005-12-02 09:50:45.866 Unable to set buffer time 500000 for playback: 
> Invalid argument

Your sound card doesn't support the sound format used by the recording.  
Therefore, you have to have ALSA convert it.  New versions of ALSA 
(1.0.9+) should take care of this automatically for you, but you can 
always (even with new versions of ALSA) specify how to do it to give you 
complete control.

While you could just plug the appropriate (and very ugly) string into 
Myth, that wouldn't help anything else, so it makes sense to re-define 
"default" (the ALSA device you're using) to work properly (i.e. with 
reasonable defaults) so /all/ your programs can play audio (including 
xine, MPlayer, ...).  You do this by editing the ~/.asoundrc or 
/etc/asound.conf.  For more info (and a ~/.asoundrc that will work well 
with few or no changes), see 
http://mythtv.info/moin.cgi/DigitalSoundHowTo#head-b318f22131b4a59eef5f28edfac9160204e13719
 (even if you're not using digital output).

Mike


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