[mythtv-users] mythtv hardware plans

[Rod Smith]

On Saturday 03 February 2007 13:03, Steven Adeff wrote:
> On 2/3/07, Rod Smith <mythtv at rodsbooks.com> wrote:
> > On the whole, I'd say that 5.1 output in Linux is "bleeding edge" for
> > most hardware.
>
> I wouldn't say its bleeding edge, you just need a chipset that is
> supported in ALSA, which is a good number of them.

This may be more of a definitional thing than anything; however, I do stand by 
my statement that 5.1 sound is "bleeding edge." The bottom line is that 
you're likely to pull quite a few hairs out trying to get it working. It 
*CAN* be done, and it's likely to work reliably once you get it going, but 
getting to that point isn't easy. Just look at the recent posts by Rich West 
for an example. The configuration settings needed to get 5.1 sound working 
vary from one driver to another, from one computer to another, and from one 
distribution to another. All of this means that you can easily spend hours 
doing Web searches trying to find suggestions that will work for you. Of 
course, you MIGHT luck out and get it right very quickly, but my impression 
is you're more likely to spend hours debugging it.

To get out of the "bleeding edge" category, IMHO we need some sort of 
configuration tool that detects what you've got and configures it correctly 
for your needs after asking a few intelligible questions, or at the very 
least we need more consistency between drivers so that the existing 
documentation will apply to a wider variety of hardware. This issue is wider 
than MythTV, though; I don't see MythTV's 5.1 audio options as being all that 
bad, although there could be some improvements. The problems are in the ALSA 
drivers and mixer settings more than anything else.

-- 
Rod Smith
http://www.rodsbooks.com