2007-08-18, 19:00
Well, I received and installed my Chaintech AV710 and after spending some time with the ALSA configuration, I was able to get most of the stuff I tried sending audio over SPDIF, including AC3 audio via mplayer. That's the standalone version of mplayer, not XBMC.
I started XBMC and decided to see what happened. To my surprise, 2 channel audio worked fine. MP3s through the audio player and a few videos with two channel AAC audio. I did not try any videos with 2 channel AC3 audio. Videos with 5.1 AC3 audio played without audio.
In case anyone else wants to try, here's a summary of what I did:
First, I disabled the onboard audio from the BIOS.
Here's some info about my card from ALSA:
My asound.conf file:
Output from mplayer. It says 2ch, but it plays 6ch. I'm guessing mplayer doesn't do any decoding, so it doesn't know the number of channels.
I started XBMC and decided to see what happened. To my surprise, 2 channel audio worked fine. MP3s through the audio player and a few videos with two channel AAC audio. I did not try any videos with 2 channel AC3 audio. Videos with 5.1 AC3 audio played without audio.
In case anyone else wants to try, here's a summary of what I did:
First, I disabled the onboard audio from the BIOS.
Here's some info about my card from ALSA:
Code:
herg@leela:~/projects$ 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 #0My asound.conf file:
Code:
herg@leela:~/projects$ cat /etc/asound.conf
pcm.envy_spdifdmix {
type dmix
ipc_key 1337
slave {
pcm "hw:0,1"
format S32_LE
rate 44100
}
}
pcm.envy_spdif {
type plug
slave {
pcm envy_spdifdmix
}
}
pcm.!default {
type plug
slave {
pcm envy_spdifdmix
}
}
# For ogle
#
pcm.!spdif {
type plug
slave {
pcm "hw:0,1"
format S32_LE
}
}
# For mplayer ao (mplayer -ac hwac3 -ao alsa1x:mplayer)
# For vlc, use mplayer as alsa device
#
pcm.!iec958 {
type plug
slave {
pcm "hw:0,1"
format S32_LE
}
}
pcm.mplayer {
type plug
slave {
pcm "hw:0,1"
format S32_LE
}
}Output from mplayer. It says 2ch, but it plays 6ch. I'm guessing mplayer doesn't do any decoding, so it doesn't know the number of channels.
Code:
herg@leela:/share/disk3/MoviesArchive/Cars$ mplayer -aspect 4:3 -ac hwac3 Cars.iso
MPlayer 2:1.0~rc1-0ubuntu9.1 (C) 2000-2006 MPlayer Team
CPU: Intel(R) Celeron(R) CPU 2.66GHz (Family: 15, Model: 4, Stepping: 1)
CPUflags: MMX: 1 MMX2: 1 3DNow: 0 3DNow2: 0 SSE: 1 SSE2: 1
Compiled with runtime CPU detection.
Can't open joystick device /dev/input/js0: No such file or directory
Can't init input joystick
mplayer: could not open config files /home/herg/.lircrc and /etc/lirc//lircrc
mplayer: No such file or directory
Failed to read LIRC config file ~/.lircrc.
Playing Cars.iso.
MPEG-PS file format detected.
VIDEO: MPEG2 720x480 (aspect 3) 29.970 fps 9800.0 kbps (1225.0 kbyte/s)
open: No such file or directory
[MGA] Couldn't open: /dev/mga_vid
open: No such file or directory
[MGA] Couldn't open: /dev/mga_vid
[VO_TDFXFB] Can't open /dev/fb0: No such file or directory.
[VO_3DFX] Unable to open /dev/3dfx.
==========================================================================
Opening video decoder: [mpegpes] MPEG 1/2 Video passthrough
VDec: vo config request - 720 x 480 (preferred colorspace: Mpeg PES)
Could not find matching colorspace - retrying with -vf scale...
Opening video filter: [scale]
The selected video_out device is incompatible with this codec.
Try adding the scale filter, e.g. -vf spp,scale instead of -vf spp.
VDecoder init failed :(
Opening video decoder: [libmpeg2] MPEG 1/2 Video decoder libmpeg2-v0.4.0b
Selected video codec: [mpeg12] vfm: libmpeg2 (MPEG-1 or 2 (libmpeg2))
==========================================================================
==========================================================================
Forced audio codec: hwac3
Opening audio decoder: [hwac3] AC3/DTS pass-through S/PDIF
No accelerated IMDCT transform found
hwac3: switched to AC3, 448000 bps, 48000 Hz
AUDIO: 48000 Hz, 2 ch, ac3, 448.0 kbit/29.17% (ratio: 56000->192000)
Selected audio codec: [hwac3] afm: hwac3 (AC3 through S/PDIF)
==========================================================================
AO: [alsa] 48000Hz 2ch ac3 (1 bytes per sample)
Starting playback...
VDec: vo config request - 720 x 480 (preferred colorspace: Planar YV12)
VDec: using Planar YV12 as output csp (no 0)
Movie-Aspect is 1.33:1 - prescaling to correct movie aspect.
VO: [xv] 720x480 => 720x540 Planar YV12
