[mythtv-users] Howto get SPDIF working on MythTV

Allen Edwards allen.p.edwards at gmail.com
Wed Jan 14 16:53:01 UTC 2009


It occurred to me that a post with a simple to search subject line
might help a few new users in the future.
I have sent this information to many people with various distributions
and it has worked for them.
It works on my mythbuntu 8.04 system.

Allen

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For spdif I recommend the following settings:

Audio output device: ALSA:spdif
Passthrough output device: ALSA:iec958(AESO 0x02)
max Audio Channels: Stereo  (this feature is broken so this is the
recommended setting even for 5.1)
Upmix: Passive
Enable AC3 to SPDIF passthrough (checked)
Enable ETS to SPDIF passthrough (checked)
Aggressive Sound Card Buffers (unchecked)

Remove or rename alsa.conf and .asoundrc if it exists.
If you are running Fedora, remove pulseaudio and all its files.  There
was a post that outlined the process but it is a dead link.  A copy is
below.

Run alsamixer and enable iec958.  It is over on the right.  Use the
right arrow key to see it.


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Copy of someone else's post:

The steps I followed were:
-1- Rename (add "-orig") to cripple:    /etc/pulse
                                       /etc/pulse/default.pa
                                       /root/pulse-cookie
                                       /home/<user name>/.pulse-cookie
-2- Run   rpm -qa | grep "pulse"   and   rpm -qa | grep "pa"    to find
the stuff loaded for pulse audio.  Remove it via yum ("yum remove xxx"),
one item below per run:
                       pulseaudio
                       alsa-plugins-pulseaudio
                       pavucontrol
                       pulseaudio-utils
                       gstreamer-plugins-pulse
                       pulseaudio-core-libs
                       akode-pulseaudio
This leaves:    libflashsupport
               pulseaudio-libs
               akode-pulseaudio
To remove these would take too many other dependencies.

IIRC, there were subsequent notes on several sites that removing only
alsa-plugins-pulseaudio was enough.  I'm not certain that "I recall
correctly" and even if I do, it might not be enough for Fedora 9.  But
I'd probably try that first to see if it (alone) works.  Besides, since
you'll eventually need to do it, there's no harm.


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