[mythtv-users] Leadtek winfast 2000 XP Can I get sound from bttv directly?

[Chris Palmer]

Edward Wildgoose wrote
> Please excuse what may be a dumb question.  
> 
> I have a Leadtek winfast 2000 XP TV card and sound works fine using 
> the loopback cable out of the back and into the soundcard.  However, 
> I am hoping to put together the highest quality system possible and 
> I have read reports from people with other cards who report better 
> quality using the btaudio module to get (what I assume is) sound 
> directly from the card.
> 
> Can anyone please confirm that this is what happens, ie with many 
> Hauppage cards you can get sound directly from the card without the 
> loopback cable, and also that this is a much higher quality solution?

I'm currently using the line-in loop on my soundcard as well, and I 
haven't really found any flaw in the quality of the audio, but I also
want to look into the btaudio method for sound on my card, which I think 
others have gotten working (I have one of the common WinTV cards).

> Also how would I determine whether I can do that with my card?  I 
> have taken the card out and there are no obvious chips with the 
> correct word, however, is this a good test?  "insmod btaudio" works, 
> but nothing obvious appears as a result.  What should happen if I 
> had (say) a hauppage card?  Would a /dev/dsp1 device appear?  Or is 
> it only exposed to the bttv driver which needs to pass it back to 
> the OS in some way...?

You should be able to find some info in a log file with the results
of loading the btaudio driver.  It should say that it loads and some
kind of card detection.  I found the following in my log after I did
a "modprobe btaudio":

hazel:/var/log# grep btaudio kern.log
Mar 21 13:16:50 hazel kernel: btaudio: driver version 0.7 loaded [digital+analog]
Mar 21 13:16:50 hazel kernel: btaudio: Bt878 (rev 17) at 00:0a.1, irq: 9, latency: 64, mmio: 0xdddff000
Mar 21 13:16:50 hazel kernel: btaudio: using card config "default"
Mar 21 13:16:50 hazel kernel: btaudio: registered device dsp2 [digital]
Mar 21 13:16:50 hazel kernel: btaudio: registered device dsp3 [analog]
Mar 21 13:16:50 hazel kernel: btaudio: registered device mixer1

If this much works (which it does for me), it might be a good sign
that you can proceed with trying to choose the right device and get
the settings tweaked until it works for you.  I intend to search the
archives for references to "btaudio" to see what others have done.

-Chris