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<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 16/05/2016 13:43, John Veness wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote
cite="mid:521ef714-33bb-7bc4-c00c-327861948c08@pelago.org.uk"
type="cite"> I'd still rather find a software fix. A loop like
"while [ true ] ; do aplay -q silent.wav ; done" is something I
could try. If it works, I would make the wav file a few seconds
long, and add a "sleep 120" or similar in there, so that it's not
using too much CPU. What I don't know is whether this will nicely
mix with Myth's output.<br>
</blockquote>
<br>
Thanks for everyone's help and advice so far.<br>
<br>
Playing with it a bit last night I find that, contrary to what I
said previously, pausing playback in MythTV does *not* cause the
soundbar to sleep after three minutes. Only quitting playback and
sitting or fiddling in the menus will do so.<br>
<br>
This makes me confident that there is definitely a software fix for
the unwanted behaviour I'm seeing. Presumably during paused
playback, Myth (or Linux, or ALSA or the sound driver) is sending a
constant bitstream of zeroes or equivalent to the HDMI audio output,
which is enough to keep the soundbar awake, but when in menus,
nothing is sent at all, causing it to sleep after three minutes.<br>
<br>
The trick is how to send a similar empty bitstream while in menus.<br>
<br>
So far I've been trying the aplay command, with no luck. If I do
just "aplay /usr/share/sounds/alsa/Noise.wav" the command looks like
it does something for a few seconds, but I hear no sound output.<br>
<br>
If instead I do "aplay -L" to list the devices, then "aplay -D
dmix:CARD=HDMI,DEV=7 /usr/share/sounds/alsa/Noise.wav", which is the
same audio device I have selected in mythfrontend, the command exits
straight away, still no sound, and I get the error "aplay:
set_params:1239: Channels count not available".<br>
<br>
All of this testing is while mythfrontend isn't running.<br>
<br>
Anyone know how to use aplay, or another similar command, to output
something to HDMI audio?<br>
<br>
John<br>
<pre class="moz-signature" cols="72">--
John Veness, MythTV user, UK, DVB-T</pre>
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