[mythtv-users] .24 Audio results: mixed

Jean-Yves Avenard jyavenard at gmail.com
Fri Jun 18 07:10:16 UTC 2010


Hi

On 18 June 2010 16:48, Douglas Peale <Douglas_Peale at comcast.net> wrote:
> But ALSA:default WAS in the list in .23, and it did not get changed when I upgraded to .24. I changed it to PulseAudio:default,
> and that caused the front end to hang when attempting to view LiveTV, so I set it back the way it was, even if I had to manually
> type it in.

In 0.23, the entries were static, from a list accumulated over the
years to cater for most.

In trunk, for ALSA is actually now only shows output device that are
actually seen by your system

> Why not ask the user what they set up, they should know, they wired the speakers.

Well, this is exactly what I'm doing now :)

> Audio setting are a real problem. Even though I know what I have physically connected, I do not have a clue as to what that
> means in terms of the chipsets listed in any of the menus.
>
> For example, On my system, my motherboard has 7.1 analog outputs, optical & coax SPDIF outputs, my video card has an HDMI port
> that can support HDMI audio.
> If I look at the hardware section of sound preferences, it shows 3 devices:
> Cx23880/1/2/3 PCI Video and Audio Decoder [Audio Port]. I THINK this is an ATI HDTV Wonder for which I have never gotten the
> analog portion to work.
> HD48x0 audio. I think this is my ATI HD 4850 video card
> Internal Audio. I'm pretty sure this is the motherboard audio

In MythTV, in the list of audio device, when you go through them, it
will show you a description at the bottom of the page.

You select the device that you *know* you are using

>
> I'm pretty sure you can get all this information with your software, but from this can you tell what hardware is actually
> connected? There is certainly no place for me to enter that data.
>
> Even if I tell you that I have a receiver connected to the coax SPDIF audio port on the motherboard, that really does not tell
> you much.
> Even if I tell you that it is a Denon AVR3801, you have no idea how many speakers I have connected to it.

Precisely...
You have an SPDIF connection, you physically can only pass 5.1 audio
via AC3. You can't do 7.1 with SPDIF (either optical or coax).

I guess I have to be more clear about the message then...

> I have 7 speakers hooked up, therefore if I see an option for 7.1, that is the one I will select.

Yes, unfortunately, the medium you are using to connect doesn't work

> I know that ALSA is being depreciated in Ubuntu and being replaced by PulseAudio, so if I see PulseAudio in the list, I assume
> that is what I should choose. All the variants of PulseAudio or ALSA are random strings of characters to me IEC958? what the

ALSA isn't being deprecated. PulseAudio uses ALSA.. PulseAudio is a
sound server, ALSA is the actual driver to use your video card.
PulseAudio is a piece of software that runs on top of ALSA (or OSS),
it doesn't replace ALSA

> hell is that? I see "default" that makes more sense. I know my reciever handles DTS, DTSes, PCM, and Dolby Digital, it says so,
> right on the front, so those are selected.
>
> Hell, I'm an electronics engineer with more than 20 years of experience, and I can't tell by looking at the menu options what
> the optimal way to set up audio on my system, or in MythTV. Imagine what it is like for non-technical people.
>
> Perhaps the menus should be:
>
> How did you hook up your audio: (only show options that exist for this system)
>  HDMI
>  SPDIF (optical or coax)
>  analog

this one is done already... it shows only options existing on your
system (at least for alsa)

> How many speakers do you have?
>  1
>  2
>  5.1
>  7.1
> (if SPDIF was selected enable these check boxes)

when you select a spdif port, the software has no way of actually know
that spdif is actually a digital port. It depends on the drivers too.

spdif is the name of an output device, the same way default or analog50 is..


> What does your receiver support?
>  DTS
>  Dolby Digital
>  probably others

The only thing we would support anyway , that is relevant to what your
receiver support is DTS and DolbyDigital , and if it supports LPCM.

Those 3 options are there already

Ideally, I need to make the speakers entry dependent to what audio
device you have selected... unfortunately, dealing with the menus
isn't simple :(

>
> And please have a TEST button so I don't have to navigate 20 menus every time I get it wrong!


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