Re: 'Splain please re: mixer, alsa, pulseaudio and tvtime??

Hi Michael;

On Sun, 2009-07-26 at 08:08 +0200, Michael Schwendt wrote:
On Sat, 25 Jul 2009 22:18:54 -0400, William wrote:

To get a clean start by first getting tvtime working with ALSA alone, I
removed PulseAudio, rebooted and ran:

1) No need to reboot. You could have killed the pulseaudio daemon.


I know -- or at least I used to know. I was no longer sure of anything,
and since we are looking for something that might be "wonky", better
safe than sorry.

2) Since tvtime doesn't do any audio playback, it doesn't have much
(if anything) to do with PulseAudio. Since tvtime only accesses a mixer,
disabling PulseAudio ensures that you can control the ALSA mixer
channels without the sound server adding another layer (such as
offering its own master volume channel).

]$ amixer controls and amixer -c 0 controls

No need to keep specifying -c 0 anywhere as long as there is only
a single hardware device numbered by ALSA on your machine.

I know. But based on the principle stated above. The reason I wanted
to know were to look in the virtual file system was because of possible
"wonkiness" i.e something was mis-reporting the absence of -c 1 i.e.
hw:1.

Simple mixer control 'Line',0 -yes numid=14 -- the best/ but no sound

I wonder what kind of Line input this is? You keep on pointing out
that you haven't placed a cable between tv card and onboard audio,
but even with onboard audio 'Line' and 'Mic' are external input
jacks, aren't they?


That is the $64,000 question. (You might be too young to remember the
$64,000 question.)

That was what started me on this whole "what do controls do?" quest and
trying to figure out various possible control combinations. Using
'Line' or Line-in on my setup didn't seem logical. It still doesn't.

I have external receptacles on my motherboard at the back of my computer
box -- one light green for incoming sound, and one light red (pink) for
a microphone. Double checked visually and in my motherboard manual.

*However* my tv tuner card has no sound output receptacle, did not come
with a line to use as an external connection line and shows no external
hookups in its manual. Besides, I have looked several times and there
is no no receptacle for line-out. I have tried experimenting with
earphones. The receptacle on the tuner card that does exist is for
sound-in for a satellite dish.

On my old computer, the tv tuner did have an external line-out to a
sound card line-in. So I am familiar with what I am looking for. I do
not have an external line plugged into on this computer's sound.


Simple mixer control 'Mic',0 -err

Interesting. Here, tvtime has no trouble using either of

tvtime --mixer=default/Mic
tvtime --mixer=hw:0/Mic
tvtime --mixer=hw:0/'Mic'

I must have made a typo on this one because tvtime --mixer=hw:0/Mic,
and, tvtime --mixer=hw:0/'Mic' works now.

Not that it makes any sense, since no mic is plugged in, but still tvtime
here succeeds in doing mute/unmute and changing the volume level.

Simple mixer control 'PC Speaker',0 -yes numid=22

Simple mixer control 'Capture',0 -err
Simple mixer control 'Capture',1 -err

This is one of the special things about your audio chipset. Two
Capture lines, likely one analog and one digital.

Yes. Knowing that Canada and the U.S. were going to all-digital at
least two years apart (or more), I purposefully purchased a TV tuner
card that could be both analog and digital. I checked on-line before
making the purchase (I forget where, but on one of the normal Linux
device recommendation sites). My card was listed as working on Linux.


Simple mixer control 'Channel Mode',0 -err
Simple mixer control 'Input Source',0 -err
Simple mixer control 'Input Source',1 -err

Two input channel chosers, two. Your earlier alsa info output
showed that first one is Line and on, second one Mic and off.

mixer: Can't open mixer hw0:Line, mixer volume and mute unavailable.
mixer: Can't open device hw0, mixer volume and mute unavailable."

Syntax error. "hw0:" is invalid.

Yea that was probably the typo. Re-checked everything making doubly
sure there was no spelling mistakes. "hw:0/CONTROL" in fact works the
same as "default/CONTROL".

$ tvtime --mixer=default/Speaker

Not available in your list of controls,

I know, but it was listed in tvtime.xml. I thought I would give it a
try.

but default/'PC Speaker' is.


Yes. It returns the volume set in Advanced Volume Control: 62%. I set
PC Speaker to a different volume level from the others to see if it
would show up. It did.

In every case, there was no sound.

Why do you still expect sound? Which component (hardware or software)
do you expect to "send sound" to your onboard audio chipset?

I don't know. I was hoping someone could tell me.

Remember, the original bug #510105 was simply "Description of problem:
No sound for my tv tuner"

Someone said that bug #510105 bug was a duplicate of #498167 "I Can't
get TVTime to output audio."

You posted to bug #510105

"Apparently, even with "alsamixer -c0" reporter cannot turn on any
input channel to make tv card audio output work. That means that internal
routing from audio between tv card and sound hw doesn't work/isn't enabled.
tvtime can't do anything about it if no mixer channel controls the tv audio
output. It's more of another tv card driver problem (also see bug 497750 - same
reporter, but F10)."

I agreed with you.

I posted this thread on the Fedora user list in order to straighten out
my use of controls before returning to bugzilla.

And how?
ANd what does your tv card driver does related to audio?


I have filed a bug about PulseAudio and my tv tuner card #510105 and
subsequnetly about ALSA + PulseAudio #511178.


We're going in circles, and that's why this is better continued in email
than in bugzilla.


Not really. I appreciate that your speciality might be tvtime, but that
is relevant here because it is the application I would like to get
working wherever the fault lies.

We have eliminated PulseAudio as being the problem -- at least in the
first instance -- by removing it and still having the same problem.

As hard as it has been to get there, my stupid choice of controls as a
cause has been eliminated. Something is wrong with the controls, but it
is probably because something is broken, not because I didn't know what
I was doing. I had to solve the controls because all the advice (often
contadictory) I had been getting from others was mainly about Control
twiddling.

ALSA or one of the sound or tuner driver(s) is probably the culprit. If
I can narrow that down, perhaps I can file a useful bug against the
right component.

--
Regards Bill
Fedora 11, Gnome 2.26.3
Evo.2.26.3, Emacs 22.3.1

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