[mythtv-users] DRAFT of proposed new FAQ (or HowTo section) (multiple sound cards)

[Bruce Markey]

Dane Kantner wrote:
> Something I've been meaning to ask...if I don't have tv tuner cards that
> support btaudio, can I just get two sound cards?   I briefly saw something
> about this (relating to a flag if you have multiple sound cards--but it
> doesnt specifically say you can use multiple sound cards with mythTV)

You need two DSPs. That could be two soundcards, one soundcard
and a capture card's DSP with btaudio, or my favorite trick, one
sound card and the on-board audio chip for its DSP only.

For example, get a motherbord with with on-board audio. It
dosen't matter if it sounds like crap, you're not going to use
it for output. Get, say, a SoundBlaster Live for all your
stereo, surrond, digital out, etc. needs and configure that
as card0. Configure the on-board as card1.

alias snd-card-0 snd-emu10k1
alias snd-card-1 snd-via82xx

# OSS/Free portion
alias char-major-14 soundcore
alias sound-slot-0 snd-card-0
alias sound-service-0-0 snd-mixer-oss
alias sound-service-0-1 snd-seq-oss
alias sound-service-0-3 snd-pcm-oss
alias sound-service-0-8 snd-seq-oss
alias sound-service-0-12 snd-pcm-oss

alias sound-slot-1 snd-card-1
alias sound-service-1-0 snd-mixer-oss
alias sound-service-1-1 snd-seq-oss
alias sound-service-1-3 snd-pcm-oss
alias sound-service-1-8 snd-seq-oss
alias sound-service-1-12 snd-pcm-oss

Plug your speakers into the SB Live. Plug one tuner card patch
cable to the SB line-in and the other tuner to the motherboard
line-in. For card1 (/dev/dsp1), you only need to set CAPTUR to
line-in and turn up the volume for "Capture". Leave everything
else on card1 off since it will only be used to record /dev/dsp1.

This way you don't need to use a second PCI sound card and you
don't have to pay as much as $100 for a card that might work
with btaudio (and be stuck as a fixed sample rate and might
sound like crap ever if it does work with btaudio ;-). A $30
bttv card and an otherwise unused on-board DSP will get the
job done just fine.

--  bjm