Difference between revisions of "Xbox Sound"

Latest revision as of 22:17, 3 September 2006

The Xbox ALSA driver is unable to control volume through hardware which is a pain. You can get around this by defining an ALSA slave device which manages the volume through software and appears to client programs as if it's a real piece of hardware.

Create a file /etc/asound.conf (if you want the new device to be visible to everyone) or ~/.asoundrc (so it's visible to programs started by the mythtv user) and add these lines:

pcm.softvol {
    type softvol
    slave {
        pcm "hw:0,0"
    }
    control {
        name "Master"
    }
}

pcm.dsp0 {
  type plug
  slave.pcm "softvol"
}

this tells ALSA to create a "softvol" device which you may then access in myth by specifying "ALSA:softvol" as your audio device, "default" as the mixer and "Master" as the mixer control. Audio settings are in the Utilities & Setup -> Setup -> General -> Audio page.

Alternatively, you can include the following additional lines:

pcm.!default {
  type plug
  slave.pcm "softvol"
}

And ALSA will use softvol as its default sound device so you can simply tell myth to use "ALSA:default". Be aware that other ALSA-using programs will be affected too. Some, like xine, default to PCM as the mixer control so you'll likely have to change their configuration accordingly.