> Greetings, > > I have freevo set up and running on a computer connected to a > television. After going through the configuration slowly and carefully, > I think I have it set up pretty well for recording and watching shows. > > One thing I wasn't able to set up to my liking was the mixer. I tried > having freevo control all audio at first, and that worked well. I could > watch live tv and the sound would turn on when I started watching and > turn off when I was done. I set up a VCR_PRE_REC script according to > some web pages to set the appropriate levels and capture device for > recording tv, and that worked well. In addition, freevo did the right > thing and wouldn't allow me to watch live tv while recording, since I > only have one tuner card - good so far. > > The problem with the setup I describe happens when I try to watch a > recording while a show is being recorded. The plugin that launches > mplayer sets the mixer to values that mute the recording in progress, > which is bad. > > At this point, I went and looked through the source code to see what the > various plugins do when they're called. My observation is that the > mixer settings are fiddled with far more than necessary. Neither the > video player nor the live tv player should ever mute the recording > input, but both of them do. On my machine, an ideal setup would leave > all the mixer settings alone, unmute the line out on the sound card when > watching live tv, and allow the user to raise and lower a single volume > setting of his choosing to control the global volume level (PCM or VOL I > suppose). Instead, freevo resets the volume on the recording portion of > the sound card, screwing up the audio in recordings. What is the reason > for the plugins to be written this way? > > Perhaps others' sound card mixer settings work differently from mine, > but at least for me, the 'line' setting determines what sound I hear > from the tuner during live tv, the 'capture' setting determines how loud > recorded audio will be, and the two settings are independent. As long > as I toggle the capture setting to on for both 'line' and 'capture' (in > alsamixer) and set the 'capture' volume appropriately, I get audio from > my recordings. The recording doesn't pay attention to the volume > setting of 'line' or if it is muted. Playing live tv directly from the > capture card, I need to unmute 'line' and set its level to something > appropriate (for me 100%), then remute it when I am done viewing live tv. > > Currently I have CONTROL_ALL_AUDIO set to 0 in my local_config.py, which > guarantees my recordings will have uninterrupted audio, still lets > recorded shows and other videos play back with the correct volume, but > makes it so watching live tv is silent. That isn't a problem, really, > since live tv is currently silly when I can just change the channel on > the tv and get to the channel I want to see. However, it would be neat > if it worked correctly without me telling freevo to lay off the mixer. > > Is there an alternate mixer plugin that just unmutes 'line' when playing > live tv and remutes it when not playing, and that otherwise leaves the > mixer alone?
VCR_IN_VOLUME may be what you want to use, it sets the line-in volume level. I don't think you need, or want, to use the VCR_PRE_REC script to set the volume. IIRC, the recordserver controls the line-in audio when a recording is about to start. CONTROL_ALL_AUDIO should not affect the line-in when recording. The freevo mixer is very simple, it only affects three controls as it was based on oss and not alsa. The controls are VOL, PCM and line-in. I don't know why PCM was chosen to control the volume but there must have been a reason. Duncan ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Take Surveys. Earn Cash. Influence the Future of IT Join SourceForge.net's Techsay panel and you'll get the chance to share your opinions on IT & business topics through brief surveys-and earn cash http://www.techsay.com/default.php?page=join.php&p=sourceforge&CID=DEVDEV _______________________________________________ Freevo-users mailing list [email protected] https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freevo-users
