[mythtv-users] which sound card to get?

[Raphael Pooser]

Kichigai Mentat wrote:
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> On Mar 13, 2006, at 00.17, Raphael Pooser wrote:
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>   
>> the sounds have a strange high pitched nature to them, as if the  
>> bottom
>> range of frequencies had been simply thrown out or as if the speakers
>> were holding metal tubes up to their mouths.
>>     
> Is it out of the realm of possibility that this is a problem with  
> your recordings? Just checking.
>   

Well, this I don't know.  I suppose the possibility is that somehow the 
recordings are screwing up.  But it's odd that it does it once in a blue 
moon and not consistently so I try and reproduce it but havn't been able 
to thus far.  It's been doing this in two versions of mythtv, 0.17 and 
0.18.1.  I tried 0.19 for a while but not long enough to see this 
problem; my guess is it's not mythtv's fault since happens in two 
different versions.  I better try another sound card with good sound and 
linux support - if it happens again then I can eliminate the sound card 
from the equation.
One odd thing is that once the problem occurs, I have to reboot the 
machine or all subsequent recordings will sound like this.  Playback of 
previous recorded programs before the problem will still sound just fine 
though....
>> I have a Live value that
>> does just that.  I also have an aureal vortex 3d that is simply, to  
>> put
>> it mildly, crap in linux.
>>     
> Sound Blaster Live! cards are pretty good. They're not too expensive,  
> and have, from my experience, great support in Linux. I ran a PC with  
> a Sound Blaster Live! Value and the system ran the emu10k1 chip with  
> no problems I could detect. 

Hmm, then the bad sound problems with my SB Live could be more related 
to my PCI slots / chipset.  Maybe I'll try and plug it back in there and 
see if I can increase the PCI latency.  I tried this card in 4 different 
Linux distros (although 3 of them were debian flavors) and got bad sound 
in each.  But in each I was using a VIA chipset.  (a kt266 and kt400).  
Personally I thought the Live was going to be great in linux too so this 
surprised me.
I took it out before knowing how to set latencies and the like.  But now 
that I know how I can retry that card again.
> Of course, we'd need to know a little bit  
> more about your specifications. Do you need 5.1? Optical? Any special  
> requirements like that.
>   
>

At this point, no Optical, no 5.1 and nothing special needed.  Just good 
ole stereo would be fine.  In fact anything is going to be better than 
my onboard ac97.
Raphael