[mythtv-users] .23 Sound Issues............Please God shoot me now!!

[Jim Hendry]

On Wed, Jun 2, 2010 at 9:21 AM, Jean-Yves Avenard <jyavenard at gmail.com>wrote:

> Hi
>
> On Wednesday, June 2, 2010, Jim Hendry <hendryjh at gmail.com>
> > As far as I can tell the only way to control optical volume is with
> pulseaudio (or esd/arts). ALSA does not seem to have a mechanism for
> controlling master/pcm volume for S/PDIF.
> >
> Course there is.
>
> As mentioned in this thread and many times before. If using spdif  or
> digital audio, you can make myth control the volume by setting the
> mixer device to "software".
>
> Why use pulse that will completely mess the quality of the output?
>
> Pulse only ever make sense on a PC if you are using this PC for
> running other application than mythtv , at the same time as mythtv and
> that also requires audio output.
> And maybe when you want to output audio on another PC.
>
> In all other cases, ALSA is the best solution for mythtv and I can't
> see what functionality pulse would provide that myth can't already do.
>
> JY
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Myth can control its volume only.  This actually does solve 80% of my use
cases where I am not sitting close enough to reach the volume control on the
speakers.  It's only if I am watching video that mythfrontend cannot play
that I will run into problems.  For non-video purposes I sit at the
computer.

I have a dual monitor setup and generally have mythfrontend running all of
the time, so I need a sound system setup that allows amarok, flash, and kde
to share the speakers with myth.

Possible solution:
Point mythfrontend at ALSA:dmixdevice.
Use mythfrontend software mixer
Set DEBUG_PULSE_AUDIO_ALSA_EMULATION so pulse continues to run
Ensure pulseaudio is using dmix device and not locking HW

This way mythfrontend is using ALSA, but other applications without software
volume control can use pulseaudio.

Drawback: different volume control keys for myth and non-myth apps (F10/F11
vs volup/voldown).

I will try this out sometime in the next day or two to ensure that it works
and solves a problem.

Jim
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