<p>Hey All!</p>
<p>I have been playing with FC4 a couple of months now just learning and playing. Something I wanted to tackle was getting spdif optical output on my MOBO working so I can run Myth.</p>
<p>I have been partially successful, but I am sure I am missing something. First off my stats:</p>
<p>-FC4 x86 (latest kernel installed with yum update on a fresh install)(Sorry at work, not in front of the box)<br>-AMD64 4200+ (Dual Core)<br>-MSI K8N Platinum Mobo<br>-2 Gig of Ram<br>-Gigabyte GeForce 6800 Vid Card<br>
-Plenty of HD Space!<br>-Running KDE</p>
<p>I hooked up an coax optical cable from my on-board sound to my receiver and I followed the instructions at :<a onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)" href="http://www.mythtv.info/moin.cgi/DigitalSoundHowTo" target="_blank">
http://www.mythtv.info/moin.cgi/DigitalSoundHowTo </a></p>
<p>I had a hard time getting the nForce4 audio to work. After searching online for a while I was able to find other people that selected OSS in the KDE Sound Control Center. Then after locking the frequency to 48k I was about to get the optical port on the mobo to light up.
</p>
<p>On the HOW TO there is a link for a test .au file. I downloaded that file and if I double click it it opens the default audio player. I can't remember the name of it, but I believe it starts with "a" and is only 4 or 5 letters long. (I couldn't find a default package list for FC4 online to try to remember what the name is.) It plays just fine if I just play the audio file that way.
</p>
<div>#aplay -l shows this: </div>
<p># aplay -l <br>**** List of PLAYBACK Hardware Devices **** <br>card 0: CK804 [NVidia CK804], device 0: Intel ICH [NVidia CK804] <br>Subdevices: 1/1 <br>Subdevice #0: subdevice #0 <br>card 0: CK804 [NVidia CK804], device 2: Intel ICH - IEC958 [NVidia CK804 -
<br>IEC958] <br>Subdevices: 1/1 <br>Subdevice #0: subdevice #0 [/CODE]</p>
<div><br>I used the .asoundrc listed below as suggested by the HOWTO:</div>
<div> </div>
<p># Override the default output used by ALSA.<br># If you do not override the default, your default<br># device is identical to the (unmixed) analog device<br># shown below. If you prefer mixed and/or digital<br># output, uncomment the appropriate four lines below
<br># (only one slave.pcm line).<br>pcm.!default {<br> type plug<br>## Uncomment the following to use mixed analog by default<br># slave.pcm "dmix-analog"<br>## Uncomment the following to use unmixed digital by default
<br># slave.pcm "digital-hw"<br>## Uncomment the following to use mixed digital by default<br> slave.pcm "dmix-digital"<br>}</p>
<p># Alias for analog output on the nForce2/4 (hw:0,0)<br># - This is identical to the device named "default"--which<br># always exists and refers to hw:0,0 (unless overridden)<br># - Therefore, we can specify "hw:0,0", "default", or "analog"
<br># to access analog output on the nForce2/4<br>pcm.analog {<br> type plug<br> slave.pcm "analog-hw"<br>}</p>
<p># Control device (mixer, etc.) for the nForce2 card<br>ctl.analog {<br> type hw<br> card 0<br>}</p>
<p># Alias for (rate-converted) mixed analog output on the<br># nForce2 (hw:0,0)<br># - This will accept audio input--regardless of rate--and<br># convert to the rate required for the dmix plugin<br># (in this case 48000Hz)
<br>pcm.mixed-analog {<br> type plug<br> slave.pcm "dmix-analog"<br>}</p>
<p># Control device (mixer, etc.) for the nForce2 card<br>ctl.mixed-analog {<br> type hw<br> card 0<br>}</p>
<p># Alias for (rate-converted) digital (S/PDIF) output on the<br># nForce2 (hw:0,2)<br># - This will accept audio input--regardless of rate--and<br># convert to the rate required for the S/PDIF hardware<br># (in this case 48000Hz)
<br>pcm.digital {<br> type plug<br> slave.pcm "digital-hw"<br>}</p>
<p># Control device (mixer, etc.) for the nForce2 card<br>ctl.digital {<br> type hw<br> card 0<br>}</p>
<p># Alias for mixed (rate-converted) digital (S/PDIF) output on the<br># nForce2/4 (hw:0,2)<br># - This will accept audio input--regardless of rate--and<br># convert to the rate required for the S/PDIF hardware<br># (in this case 48000Hz)
<br>pcm.mixed-digital {<br> type plug<br> slave.pcm "dmix-digital"<br>}</p>
<p># Control device (mixer, etc.) for the nForce2 card<br>ctl.mixed-digital {<br> type hw<br> card 0<br>}</p>
<p># The following devices are not useful by themselves. They<br># require specific rates, channels, and formats. Therefore,<br># you probably do not want to use them directly. Instead use<br># of of the devices defined above.
</p>
<p># Alias for analog output on the nForce2 (hw:0,0)<br># Do not use this directly--it requires specific rate,<br># channels, and format<br>pcm.analog-hw {<br> type hw<br> card 0<br> # The default value for device is 0, so no need to specify
<br>}</p>
<p># Control device (mixer, etc.) for the nForce2/4 card<br>ctl.analog-hw {<br> type hw<br> card 0<br>}</p>
<p># Alias for digital (S/PDIF) output on the nForce2/4 (hw:0,2)<br># Do not use this directly--it requires specific rate,<br># channels, and format<br>pcm.digital-hw {<br> type hw<br> card 0<br> device 2<br>}</p>
<p># Control device (mixer, etc.) for the nForce2/4 card<br>ctl.digital-hw {<br> type hw<br> card 0<br>}</p>
<p># Direct software mixing plugin for analog output on<br># the nForce2/4 (hw:0,0)<br># Do not use this directly--it requires specific rate,<br># channels, and format<br>pcm.dmix-analog {<br> type dmix<br> ipc_key 1234<br>
slave {<br> pcm "analog-hw"<br> period_time 0<br> period_size 1024<br> buffer_size 4096<br> rate 48000<br> }<br>}</p>
<p># Control device (mixer, etc.) for the nForce2/4 card<br>ctl.dmix-analog {<br> type hw<br> card 0<br>}</p>
<p># Direct software mixing plugin for digital (S/PDIF) output<br># on the nForce2/4 (hw:0,2)<br># Do not use this directly--it requires specific rate,<br># channels, and format<br>pcm.dmix-digital {<br> type dmix<br> ipc_key 1235
<br> slave {<br> pcm "digital-hw"<br> period_time 0<br> period_size 1024<br> buffer_size 4096<br> rate 48000<br> }<br>}</p>
<p># Control device (mixer, etc.) for the nForce2/4 card<br>ctl.dmix-digital {<br> type hw<br> card 0<br>}</p>
<p>Following the instructions on the HOWTO I test the audio output with</p>
<p>"aplay -D digital /mythtv/Desktop/english.au" </p>
<p>It reports that it is playing the audio file and goes back to a prompt, but I don't hear anything. I have also tried "mixed-digital" as the device but still no audio.</p>
<p>However if I just double click the .au file, it plays in the default player just fine.</p>
<p>Also "ALSA:default" or "ALSA:hw:0,2" as the device doesn't produce sound either. </p>
<div>The same thing happens with MythMusic, if I put "ALSA:digital" for the sound device for MythMusic the visualization start and the time counter starts, but no sound...</div>
<div> </div>
<div>I must be missing something here, but I can't find it.</div>
<div> </div>
<div>I can provide more info when I get home (Kernel Version, The Default Program that is playing the AU file and producing sound, etc) but I thought if anyone knew what to try based on what I have provided, it might point me the right way.
</div>
<p>Thanks in advance!</p>
<p>Jason</p>