[mythtv-users] Grrrr, I can't figure out if I hate alsa or Creative!!!

[cmisip]

I have an sb live 5.1 working well with oss drivers.





On Wed, 2003-11-12 at 18:13, William H. Gilmore wrote:
> If I have learned nothing else, I have learned that the folks who said
> audio was the toughest part of MythTV know what they are talking
> about.  
> 
>  
> 
> I am a 6+ year veteran of Linux with another ½ dozen years of
> experience with UNIX prior to that.  So I ain’t no rookie! (though I
> am a MythTV rookieJ)  Trying to get sound cards working in my machine
> with alsa has been a real pain.  This note is meant to offer up what I
> have found as well as to help me vent.  So be warned before you read
> further.
> 
>  
> 
> What I have learned:
> 
>  
> 
>      1. The onboard VIA8233 audio on my Athlon XP 2200 MBO possesses a
>         high pitch whine when watching certain channels with MythTV.
>         I posted an earlier note on this and received two responses
>         that corroborated this observation.
> 
> 
>  
> 
>      1. So I exercised humility and asked for recommendations for
>         sound cards.  Jason was nice enough to offer the Creative
>         Audigy as a good middle of the road card.  So, I ran out to
>         Micro Centre and bought an Audigy LS.  BAD MOVE!!!!  This
>         card’s PCI ID (1102:0007) is not in the Linux PCI DB on SF.  I
>         received a whole slew of errors when I tried to insert the
>         kernel module. I scanned the source code thinking that I would
>         hack it in, but decided that I just wasn’t man enough for the
>         job.
> 
> 
>  
> 
>      1. So I decided to back down the quality curve a little and
>         swapped the SB Live! (rev 7) card from my production desktop
>         and put it in the MythTV box thinking that a card 3 years old
>         would be a cakewalk!  WRONG AGAIN!!!!  Same errors as in
>         debacle 2!  While the PCI ID on this card is as documented on
>         SF (1102:0002), the sub-device number (8032) wasn’t.  So, I
>         was foiled again!!!
> 
> 
>  
> 
>      1. But being the glutton for punishment that I am, I remembered
>         that I had an Ensoniq Audio PCI 3000 (ES1370 chip) in the
>         basement.  So, I dug it out and slapped it in.  Voila!!!!  The
>         Red Hat Hardware Detection God Kudzu recognized the card!!!! 
>         And you know what, I can play wave files thought it.  And you
>         know what, I can hear the audio from xawtv thought it.  And
>         you know what else, the DSP interface doesn’t
>         wwwooorrrrkkkkk!!!!!!!!!!!!   Aaaaarrrrgggghhhh.  What am I, a
>         geek version of Rodney Dangerfield!!
> 
> 
>  
> 
>      1. I then got down on my knees, called Uncle, pulled out my AMEX
>         card, and ordered Jason’s top of the line recommendation, an
>         M-Audio Revolution 7.1 from Nutrend.  It should arrive early
>         next week!  In the mean time, its back to the VIA 8233 which
>         does work.  The whine doesn’t both me now because my whine is
>         louder!!!!
> 
> 
>  
> 
> What is the moral of the story?  I don’t know!!!  Buy a Macintosh? 
> Just joking at least I didn’t say Window$
> 
>  
> 
> On a more serious note, while the alsa project has made substantial
> headway, its quality is not what I have come to expect from other Open
> Source projects.  At least three different people had reported my
> problem with the Audigy LS to the project, but there was no response.
> I think this is extremely unfortunate, because the minimal fix is
> likely simple (add the PCI ID to the code), but the lack of
> documentation in the driver and the complexity of the driver
> architecture makes it difficult for passing do gooders like me to
> help.
> 
>  
> 
> On a positive note, I have found the installation documentation for
> MythTV to be great.  I have been amazed at the speed in which changes
> are integrated both into the code and better yet, the documentation.
> User documentation can improve.  For example, while I installed
> pre-built binaries (I know boo hiss, you damn lazy geek, I am) I
> couldn’t find out what keys did what until I found the keys.txt file
> outside of the gorgeous HTML documentation!  But all in all, thanks to
> all of you who have taken the time to make this happen.
> 
>  
> 
> If you got this far and are entertained, then please do one of the
> following:
> 
>  
> 
>      1. Post your story of Linux/MythTV pain!
>      2. Offer an opinion about the best OS is for MythTV.  As you can
>         tell from above, I am currently using RedHat and am facing the
>         dilemma of where to go.  Is Fedora the right answer or should
>         I consider …
> 
> 
>  
> 
> Have a great day!!!
> 
>  
> 
> William
> 
>  
> 
> 
> 
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