[MPlayer-users] quirks with mplayer -ac hwac3?

[krish_mp at 2bit.com]

I\'ve found that when I play a DVD, in order to send the AC3 
soundtrack out my spdif unaltered, I need to use 
 
mplayer -dvd 1 -alang en -ac hwac3 -af-adv force=3 
 
If I omit the -af-adv force=3, mplayer fails with the following messages: 
 
alsa9: 48000 Hz/2 channels/4 bpf/65536 bytes buffer/Signed 16 bit Little 
Endian 
AO: [alsa9] 48000Hz 2ch AC3 (1 bps) 
AO: Description: ALSA-0.9.x audio output 
AO: Author: Alex Beregszaszi <alex at naxine.org>, Joy Winter <joy at pingfm.org> 
AO: Comment: under developement 
Building audio filter chain for 48000Hz/2ch/16bit -> 48000Hz/2ch/8bit... 
[dummy] Was reinitialized, rate=48000Hz, nch = 2, format = 0x00000020 and bps 
= 2 
[libaf] Adding filter format 
[format] Sample format big endian AC3  not yet supported 
Couldn\'t find matching filter / ao format! -> NOSOUND 
Uninit audio filters... 
[libaf] Removing filter  K KI 
 
and then it goes on to crash with a signal 11. 
 
Is this a known bug/feature? 
I\'m running linux kernel 2.4.19 with alsa 0.9.0rc6 modules 
and MPlayer 0.9.0rc3 
hardware is P4 1.6 with Abit SD7-533 onboard cmi8738 sound 
with spdif out to an external AC3 decoder/amp. 
 
Krishna