[mythtv-users] dual (bilingual) sound

[Petr Stehlik]

Michael T. Dean píše v Út 29. 11. 2005 v 17:54 -0500:

> >>>basically requires to take just one channel and to send it as mono sound
> >>>out. And to allow user to switch between the channels (lang1/lang2)
> >>>would be a nice bonus.

> >>In frontend settings:
> >>Independent Muting of Left and Right Audio

> >Sounds great, but as I said, it should also switch the output to mono

> Geez.  Let me hold your hand while we test this out...

Michael,

you're right, I haven't even tried it out. I am very sorry that I
replied before giving it a try. Can you please accept an excuse that
these bilingual programs are not shown everyday on our TV? I would have
to wait for next weekend so I decided to answer blindly. 

> <disclaimer>This post is full of sarcasm.  Sarcasm is the price I'm 
> asking you to pay

I fully accept that. No problem.

> hope this approach was more beneficial to you than the other approach I 
> would have taken (ignoring your refusal to test it 

definitely. I appreciate that. Thanks.

> OK, so now that we've ascertained that it does in fact work the way you 
> want, we just have one more issue--how to make it work automagically.  
> So, how do you propose we do that?  Don't you have to make the decision 
> which audio channel you can understand/you want to hear?  Since the 
> audio is analog, there's no metadata to describe which channel contains 
> which information (i.e. which language), so anything Myth does would be 
> just guessing.

Well, this lang1/2 feature is hardwired in every TV set sold on
(Czech/Slovak - maybe European, maybe even world-wider?) market and it
works correctly so I assume that one of the stereo channels is set as
default language channel when the bilingual transmission is detected.
Now it's up to me to look into xawtv source code to find out which
channel it is - either left or right, there is no more possibilities.

You are of course correct that user might want to decide which language
they want to listen to, but the default should be switching to lang1
automagically instead of playing both langs at once (like it does now).

> I'm sure it would be relatively easy to include a 
> mute setting in the new playback group feature, but if the configuration 
> changes, even that's not worth the effort.

As pointed above, the configuration cannot change, IMHO. Now the
question is whether the saved stream can keep the information about its
bilingual sound or not. I guess (still guessing because I am sitting at
work now and don't have time to start digging in source code of other
applications - hoping that someone who just know the answer will pop up
and correct me in the meantime) that normally the stereo/bilingual is
reported by V4L core. But what to do with DivX or nuv recorded file?

> Sorry for the attitude.  It seems that blind dismissals of suggestions 
> are causing me to spend more time re-answering questions to convince 
> someone it's worth their time to test my suggestions than I spend 
> answering questions.

I know what you mean. My only (poor) excuse is the one about rare
programs with the bilingual sound. I'll try to make sure I tested
everyone's suggestions before replying next time.

Thanks.

Petr