[mythtv-users] Mythbuntu, only mythtv plays sound, doesn't release sound card?

[P Orrifolius]

> I had the same problem recently.  I found that trying to play anything other
> than recordings/videos in Myth resulted in silence (even Internet Video).
> It turned out that by default everything was going through the 'Line out'
> jack.
>
> I created /etc/asound.conf with the following:
>
> pcm.!default {
> type plug
> slave.pcm "spdif"
> }
>
> to force the SPDIF output to be the default.  Now I get sound from other
> programs.

Thanks, Richard.  That's a great improvement.

I've been trying random incantations in /etc/asound.conf / ~/.asoundrc
without any success.

Using your suggestion I can get sound from other apps, with a couple
of limitations....

 1) there seems to be a few seconds delay before sound will start playing
 2) no concurrent sound from different applications (as you point out)
 3) I have to quit the last application (Chromium and mpd at least),
even if it's no longer playing sound, before myth can play.

Perhaps 1 is due to going through 'plug' with software conversions?
Would 'hw' be better?
Perhaps need to go through 'dmix' to fix 2?
Probably solved by fixing 2?

Trouble is I'm not sure how to go about changing the asound.conf.
What are the possible types and slave devices?  'plug' and 'spdif' are
not anything listed by aplay -L.

Myth output currently goes through ALSA:hw:CARD=NVidia,DEV=1... though
when some other app is using it I get a '...is invalid or not useable'
message.


Thanks.