[MPlayer-users] Can't get AC3 sound with alsa and cmipci

[Marc MERLIN]

On Mon, Oct 21, 2002 at 06:54:41PM +0100, gabor wrote:
> > So, I  have a freshly  compiled (just in case)  MPlayer 0.90pre8-2.95.4,
> > and while I can get sound for my video files on disk, I can't get AC3 to
> > work for a DVD with alsa9 and  cmipci (I have the zoltrix card with both
> > analog and SPDIFF out)

Before I go into details and lose most of the readership :-)
How do I fix this:
Forcing audio codec: [ac3] afm:libac3 (AC3)
Requested audio codec family [ac3] (afm=libac3) not available (enable it at compilation!)

For the life of me, I could not see what I missed for ac3 to be compiled
in. ./configure seemed to find everything it needed...
What I am missing to compile this in?

Or should I not care and stick to ac52 for playing on normal speakers?
 
> so you want spdiff out?
 
Well, I'd  like both normal sound  and spdiff sound, it  works fine with
other video  sources I  have.  Depending  on whether  I mute  the IEC958
output or not, I get analog sound or digital sound out.
It works just fine, _until_ I play my DVD with AC3/DTS sound , and then,
nothing.  Yes, I'd  primarily like spdiff out, but I'd  also like analog
out to plug and play into normal speakers.
 
> then don't use liba52, it does the decoding of the ac3 stream... and as

That's also what I'd like to do.

> you will have to use -afm (don't use -ac, -afm is recommended) hwac3...
> read DOCS/tech/hwac3.txt

Actually, I had, but I didn't really get anywhere.
Turns out  that the  test DVD  I tried  (5th element  superbits edition)
apparently  is  causing problems  maybe  because  it  has DTS  sound  or
something.
I'll continue with another  DVD with which I had more  luck, but can you
tell me  who/what list  I should  talk to about  getting hwac3  and ac52
working on that DVD?

So, let's worry about another DVD for now.
sudo mplayer  -ao alsa9  -afm hwac3 -dvd 1
gives
AO: [alsa9] 48000Hz 2ch AC3
alsa-init: testing and bugreports are welcome.
alsa-init: requested format: 48000 Hz, 2 channels, AC3
alsa-init: soundcard set to iec958:AES0=0x2,AES1=0x82,AES2=0x0,AES3=0x2
alsa9: 48000 Hz/2 channels/4 bpf/16384 bytes buffer/Signed 16 bit Little Endian

Even though it says 2ch, I do hear 5 channel sound. I don't get it...
(I've given the -channels 6 option, but it doesn't make a difference)

sudo mplayer  -ao oss:/dev/dsp  -afm hwac3 -dvd 1
gives
AO: [oss] 48000Hz 2ch AC3
Can't set audio device /dev/dsp to AC3 output, trying S16...
and yet I get surround too...

I guess  hwac3.txt may be outdated,  outside of the incorrect  output, I
get AC3 with both native alsa or oss emulation.

/dev/adsp, which  should be the one  to use according to  hwac3.txt gets
the same warning, and outputs no sound...

Anyway, ac52 works with that DVD, and -afm ac3 still fails like above.

Now,  I need  to find  out why  it doesn't  work with  all the  DVDs and
whether there is a fix.

Thanks,
Marc
-- 
"A mouse is a device used to point at the xterm you want to type in" - A.S.R.
Microsoft is to operating systems & security ....
                                      .... what McDonalds is to gourmet cooking 
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