[mythtv] ALSA and PVR-350

[Torsten Schenkel]

On Sat, 2003-11-01 at 16:31, Desmond Rivet wrote:
> Hi all,
> 
> I'm using MythTV with a PVR-350 and a SBLive5.1. I want to try and get TVout 
> working on my PVR-350, and digitial out (passthrough) working on the SB, so 
> that my receiver can automatically switch between the digital SB sound and 
> the analog PVR-350 sound.
> 
> I don't have ALSA, I only have OSS.

Well, get it then. Or is there some problem with that? ALSA should
support the SBLive. 

> My receiver only has optical digital inputs left. I assume I can buy a cable 
> that will plug into an optical input on my receiver on one end and plug into 
> the digital out of the SB5.1 on the other end? I don't remember seeing these 
> at Radio Shack :)

You mean optical -> rca spdif? Don't know, but will look for myself next
week, since my receiver also has more optical than rca digital inputs.

> Before I go out and buy some cables, do I have to do anything special 
> through MythTV to get digital passthrough working on the SBLive5.1? I know I 
> can choose the sound device through the GUI - is there a seperate digital 
> device? Or is it just a simple matter of plugging the cable into the jack? 
> Does the sound output simply go to both the analog and digital outputs at 
> the same time?

I don't know about the SBlive but the VIA 82xxx sound chips can be set
to duplicate stereo onto digital out and will switch transparently to
and fro ac3 passthrough, thats what I have here. The trick is to set the
IEC958 Playback (that's digital out) to zero, don't know why, is counter
intuitive for me, but works <shrug>.

HTH,

Torsten