[MPlayer-users] alsa output strangeness with latest CVS

[ephemeron at softhome.net]

On 20. May 2004 at 9:46AM +0200,
Michael Weissenbacher <webmaster at dermichi.com> wrote:

> | I also noticed that -ao alsa1x has disappeared in favor of a
> | generic -ao alsa. Surprisingly in OSS emulation (-ao oss without
> | any real OSS modules getting loaded) the sound is OK.  Is anyone
> | else experiencing this problem?
>
> yes, i'm experiencing the same problems. for me it has also worked to
> disable the dmix-plugin and use hw:0,0. is suspect the audio buffer for
> alsa is a little too small per default.

How do I do change the alsa audio buffer size?  My .asoundrc is
practically empty, except for:

pcm.!default {
        type hw
        card 2
        }
ctl.!default {
        type hw
        card 2
        }

Which I believe mplayer ignores anyway.  I need to specify the
third sound card (-ao alsa:hw:2.0) because I have a tv tuner
which alsa recognizes as the second sound card (card 1) and an
old yamaha sound card as the first sound card. The third sound
card is the onboard VIA sound.  I'm forced to use it because the
yamaha card has hardware damage.

I noticed that the "alsa-space" problem happens only when playing
video streams (with sound), like VCD's and quicktime trailers.
It doesn't happen with pure audio, like .ogg and .flac streams.
And it doesn't affect the sound coming off a tv:// playback (from
the tv tuner's audio output jack to the onboard sound's input
jack).