SPDIF optical support?
I am trying to get 3.2 running on my new myth system. I am running into two problems, one is my wireless network card - that seems to be more of a FC5 problem than anything - so I'll not mention it here. The other is sound.
I have an MSI RX480 Neo2-F Socket 939 Motherboard(M452-2816 ). It has an Optical SPDIF out on it. I have it connected to my RCA 5.1 Dolby Surround system via the "satellite sound input" optical jack and I have the satellite selected as the sound input on the front panel. However - no sound.
I have tried working in alsamixer, kmix etc to get this to work. I have tried turning muting off on the iec958 and setting it's volume to zero as most guides suggest. Still no sound.
I am beginning to wonder if this is even possible?
I am at my wits end about this. Anyone who can tell me how to make this work is a saint. I really don't want to think I wasted my money on this new surround system.
Thanks in advance,
Joe
The MythTV Wiki is your
The MythTV Wiki is your friend ;-)
http://www.mythtv.org/wiki/index.php/Configuring_Digital_Sound_with_AC3_and_SPDIF
"Please ignore the man behind the curtain"
Dennis
"Please ignore the man behind the curtain"
Dennis
And what's behind door #3 Don Pardo?
OK, no luck so far, even with the wiki instructions.
My "aplay -L" shows this:
cards 'cards.pcm'
front 'cards.pcm.front'
rear 'cards.pcm.rear'
center_lfe 'cards.pcm.center_lfe'
side 'cards.pcm.side'
surround40 'cards.pcm.surround40'
surround41 'cards.pcm.surround41'
surround50 'cards.pcm.surround50'
surround51 'cards.pcm.surround51'
surround71 'cards.pcm.surround71'
iec958 'cards.pcm.iec958'
spdif 'cards.pcm.iec958'
modem 'cards.pcm.modem'
phoneline 'cards.pcm.phoneline'
default 'cards.pcm.default'
dmix 'cards.pcm.dmix'
dsnoop 'cards.pcm.dsnoop'
Which tells me that yes, the hardware is seen and recognized.
So I unmuted the IEC958, per the wiki. Since my spdif entry above is just a pointer to the iec958 interface I should be able to send a sound to ALSA:spdif and get something right? No.
Running "aplay -D ALSA:spdif ac3_48khz_diatonis_soal.ac3" gets me this error:
ALSA lib pcm.c:2143:(snd_pcm_open_noupdate) Unknown PCM ALSA:spdif
aplay: main:547: audio open error: No such file or directory
So I tried "aplay -D ALSA:iec958 ac3_48khz_diatonis_soal.ac3" and got the same.
I also tried "speaker-test -Dspdif -c6" (and the same with iec958 instead of spdif) and I get:
speaker-test 1.0.11rc2
Playback device is spdif
Stream parameters are 48000Hz, S16_LE, 6 channels
Using 16 octaves of pink noise
ALSA lib confmisc.c:1105:(snd_func_refer) Unable to find definition 'cards.ATIIXP.pcm.iec958.1:CARD=0,AES0=4,AES1=130,AES2=0,AES3=2'
ALSA lib conf.c:3500:(_snd_config_evaluate) function snd_func_refer returned error: No such file or directory
ALSA lib conf.c:3968:(snd_config_expand) Evaluate error: No such file or directory
ALSA lib pcm.c:2143:(snd_pcm_open_noupdate) Unknown PCM spdif
Playback open error: -2,No such file or directory
All of this says to me - it can't find the spdif out, despite it showing up in aplay -L.
Can anyone advise?
Thanks in advance.
You may want to post this on
You may want to post this on the mythtv users list.
"Please ignore the man behind the curtain"
Dennis
"Please ignore the man behind the curtain"
Dennis
SOLVED!
As it turns out, FC5 does not have support for the ATI spdif chipset by default.
I found this - http://www.alsa-project.org/alsa-doc/doc-php/template.php?company=ATI&card=ATI-IXP+southbridge+AC97+audio.&chip=IXP+SB150%2C+IXP+SB200%2C+IXP+SB250%2C+IXP+SB300%2C+IXP+SB400&module=atiixp
So I downloaded the latest version of alsa, alsa-lib, alsa-utils and recompiled them.
For alsa I had to throw the option "./configure --with-cards=atiixp --with-sequencer=yes".
Once this was done I tried "mplayer -ao alsa:device=hw=0.0 -ac hwac3 /home/mythtv/Desktop/ac3_48khz_diatonis_soal.ac3"
and I sort of heard a low gurgling from my surround system.
I went into alsamixer and turned the "volume" on "iec958 p"
to zero and ran "mplayer -ao alsa:device=hw=0.0 -ac hwac3 /home/mythtv/Desktop/ac3_48khz_diatonis_soal.ac3" again
and viola! I had beautiful surround sound!
Now dropping the "-ao alsa:device=hw=0.0 -ac hwac3" into
the mplayer command for playing videos didn't get me any
sound, but I am sure some tinkering there will get me
results. I intend to try removing the "-ac hwac3" first.
I hope this helps anyone else who may have this problem.
Please note! I did perform the directions suggested about
in teh mythwiki optical sound page. You do have to unmute
iec958 as explained there. Aside from that, nothing on
that page was pertenant.