[mythtv-users] Strange sound problem with VIA onboard sound

[Paul Barker]

Hi All

First let me say that if this is answered elsewhere or I'm missing
something stupid feel free to flame me (gently) ! Any help would be most
appreciated. I'm by no means a computer novice but my experience lies in
HPUX / Solaris enterprise systems so I don't really know a lot about
configuring sound devices in Linux - not much call for DD5.1 in our
Datacenter ;) (But now I think about it ... ;) 

I've spent the last couple of weeks putting together a Myth box based on
Fedora and using Jarod's excellent guide (thanks Jarod - donation to
follow on payday !)

My hardware is an Abit KD7A motherboard, Athlon XP1800, 512Mb Ram,
PVR250, GeForce 440MX for TV out.

When I bought the components I figured I may have problems with the
onboard audio but I'd give it a chance and just stump up for an Audigy
if I couldn't make it work. The problem is that it *almost* works !

I'm using alsa and have set up all of my volumes in the alsa mixer. I
ran xine to test the optical out was working and can get excellent Dolby
Digital 5.1 and Dolby Pro Logic from DVDs and I get basic analog stereo
from xmms on the desktop. The problem is that when I run MythMusic or
MythTV I get no audio unless I go back into the mixer and check and
uncheck the "IEC958" button at the bottom of the panel.

This works fine until I exit back to Myth's menu, but when I go back to
Live TV I have to do it again. I've saved the mixer settings and created
a .asoundrc file in ~mythtv and I've read the FAQs on the via82xx driver
on the ALSA pages but try as I might I just cant get it to work without
intervention.

At the end of the day I don't mind stumping up for an Audigy but it
seems a shame when the motherboard has an optical digi out that I could
be using for "free".

Thanks in advance.

Paul