[mythtv-users] Chaintech AV710 with S/PDIF output. mplayer hangs at 0.00 seconds

[Allen Edwards]

On Sun, May 31, 2009 at 10:13 PM, Ryan Allen <ryan at the-summit.net> wrote:
>
> Hi MythTV users,
>
>   I'm having a really frustrating time with my soundcard.  I've spent
>   about 5 hours trying to get this guy to work.  It used to work with
>   an old install on knoppmyth, but I recently upgraded to the latest
>   mythbuntu (9.04) and It is silent.
>
>   I'm testing with speaker-test and with mplayer, and they both seem to
>   fail the same way.  They hang, with no error and no output.
>
>   mplayer will hang here forever:
>
>   mplayer -ao alsa:device=spdif -ac mad /test.mp3
>   MPlayer 1.0rc2-4.3.3 (C) 2000-2007 MPlayer Team
>   CPU: AMD Athlon(tm) 64 X2 Dual Core Processor 4800+ (Family: 15,
>           Model: 107, Stepping: 1)
>   CPUflags:  MMX: 1 MMX2: 1 3DNow: 1 3DNow2: 1 SSE: 1 SSE2: 1
>   Compiled with runtime CPU detection.
>
>   Playing /test.mp3.
>   Audio file file format detected.
>   ==========================================================================
>   Forced audio codec: mad
>   Opening audio decoder: [libmad] libmad mpeg audio decoder
>   AUDIO: 44100 Hz, 2 ch, s16le, 192.0 kbit/13.61% (ratio:
>           24000->176400)
>   Selected audio codec: [mad] afm: libmad (libMAD MPEG layer 1-2-3)
>    ==========================================================================
>    AO: [alsa] 44100Hz 2ch s16le (2 bytes per sample)
>    Video: no video
>    Starting playback...
>    A:   0.0 (00.0) of 399.0 (06:39.0) ??,?%
>
>
>
>    and speaker test will hang here:
>
>    speaker-test -Diec958 -c2
>
>    speaker-test 1.0.18
>
>    Playback device is iec958
>    Stream parameters are 48000Hz, S16_LE, 2 channels
>    Using 16 octaves of pink noise
>    Rate set to 48000Hz (requested 48000Hz)
>    Buffer size range from 8 to 8192
>    Period size range from 4 to 4096
>    Using max buffer size 8192
>    Periods = 4
>    was set period_size = 2048
>    was set buffer_size = 8192
>     0 - Front Left
>    -- hang forever --
>
>
>    aplay -l
>    **** List of PLAYBACK Hardware Devices ****
>    card 0: AV710 [Chaintech AV-710], device 0: ICE1724 [ICE1724]
>      Subdevices: 1/1
>        Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
>        card 0: AV710 [Chaintech AV-710], device 1: IEC1724 IEC958
>        [IEC1724 IEC958]
>          Subdevices: 1/1
>            Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
>
>
>
>
>    I wish there were more debugging available in the /var/log/messages
>    or syslog, but so far just silence.
>
>    Anybody have any suggestions???


You might try going directly to the hw instead of using the spdif driver.
See http://www.mythtv.org/wiki?title=AllensDigitalAudioHowto for details.
basically instead of spdif or iec958 it would be some variation of
hw:0,1  I am not sure of the : and , and = signs that you need.
I had a problem with no sound when the bit order was not right so I
used the following:

  pcm.!default {
     type plug
     slave {
        pcm "hw:0,1"
        format S32_LE
     }
  }

Allen