Re: [Alsa-user] tv card: no sound

[Nigel H. <cav...@al...>]

On Monday 23 June 2008 16:24, Robert Zelic wrote:
> > Hi Robert. You could try as root,  modprobe snd-pcm-oss, as I think this
> > should create /dev/mixer, and you should see some other stuff turn up in
> > lsmod, as below.
> > snd-pcm-oss
> > snd-mixer-oss
> > snd-seq-oss
>
> Thanks to Stan and to you for answer.
> I did that, and the /dev/mixer was created, also the /dev/dsp which is
> needed by xawtv. I checked the alsa-oss, it wasn't installed, my bad. Now
> the alsa oss moduls are being loaded at the system startup. No more error
> messages but I still have no sound in tvtime, xawtv and mplayer (only tv,
> movie files work ok). The volume is on 0 and I can't change it.
> Also I unmuted everything in alsamixer, altought there is no option to
> adjust volume for cd. Same situation in kmix. The tv card works fine, as in
> win I have sound.

It's perhaps no surprise that it works with sound on a windows install, as you 
get a cdrom/floppy with the drivers on it, but that aside, and back to why 
the TV card has no sound on Linux.

I've just built a new machine which has a mobo that has a hda intel sound 
card. The sounds work ok with Fedora 8, Kubuntu Breezy, Archlinux, and 
Kubuntu Gutsy Gibbon. I havn't tried my TV card (Hauppauge Win TV express 
(bttv driver), as it's on a different machine. I couldn't find a cable to 
connect the analogue sound output from the optical drive to the mobo, but 
have used direct digital output to play audio CD's. No help to you of course, 
and I'm unable to say if the analogue input to the mobo works or not with 
this hda intel card, and of course it's a different hda intel card, which 
uses an ALC662/Azalia codec.

Did your TV card come with a short link cable, that you can connect from audio 
out on the TV card to line in on the sound card? If so it may be worth trying 
that cable. The line input on alsamixer will have to be unmuted and the 
slider pushed up of course.

I had problems getting the sound working with my Hauppauge card, and had to 
set some options in /etc/modprobe.conf. I'm living in France, and had to set 
one option to get sounds working for the French, and Belgian channels, and 
another option to get sound for transmissions I can receive direct from the 
UK (across the English Channel), so sound on TV cards can be a bit of fun to 
say the least on Linux.

It may be worth asking on the v4l list. Sometimes they are a bit slow to 
reply, and it may be worth a bit of googling for useage of your card under 
linux in the meantime.
https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/video4linux-list

Just for info this is what sliders I have on alsamixer on my newly built 
machine, that has an hda intel card. (MCP61 southbridge, ALC662/Azalia codec)

First for Kubuntu Gutsy Gibbon, alsa driver version 1.0.14, alsamixer 1.0.14.
Kernel version: 2.6.22-15-generic.
Headphone (this is a switch, and sound output is ok with just the headphone 
output through my DJ mixer.
PCM
Front
Front Mic (not sure if that's an inbuilt mic on a laptop)
Line
Mic  (Again, not sure if that's inbuilt laptop mic or the one on the 
soundcard)
IEC958 switch  (that's for changing analogue to digital output (SPDIF) IIRC)
Input so (Input Source, and no idea what that's for)

Now on the same machine with Archlinux booted up, and a newer alsa driver, 
which is 1.0.16rc2, alsamixer version 1.0.16.
Kernel version: 2.6.25-ARCH

Alsamixer controls are the same as the Kubuntu's alsamixer above, but with the 
addition of a "Master" slider, with a "Mute/Unmute" switch attached.

I won't bother to list the alsamixer controls for my Audigy2 soundblaster card 
(emu10k1) on the machine that has the TV card, as it goes on forever.

Personally the first thing I'd do, would be to write to the v4l list, and see 
if anyone has suggestions to getting sound working with your TV card, mind 
you saying that, I think I mostly got sounds working by a whole lot of 
googling for info on my card.

For example, in the case of my card which uses the bttv driver, I downloaded 
the tarball for the driver, unpacked it, and oftentimes there are a lot of 
options presented in various files to get stuff working. 

Would you post the output of lspci -v? lspci-vv might give more info, and just 
the lines for the TV card. I'm pretty much doing nothing so can ggogle a bit 
to see if I can info for getting sounds working on the card.

The full output as well for lsmod would be usefull.

Personally I never got tvtime to work, and have never tried mplayer for 
watching TV, but Xawtv works ok, and I've stayed with that.

Nigel.