Why doesn't audio work for TVtime?

[boatman9]

Recently I connected a Hauppauge WinTV HVR 850 usb stick to my computer. Sound works fine when using Kaffeine to watch digital TV (ATSC), however sound does not work when using TVtime to watch analog channels (NTSC).

 

/usr/sbin/lsof | grep \/dev\/snd

shows the following when sound is working with Kaffeine.

pulseaudi  1129 user  mem       CHR     116,48                7229 /dev/snd/pcmC1D0p
pulseaudi  1129 user   20u      CHR      116,0      0t0       3030 /dev/snd/controlC0
pulseaudi  1129 user   28u      CHR     116,48      0t0       7229 /dev/snd/pcmC1D0p
pulseaudi  1129 user   36u      CHR     116,32      0t0       7233 /dev/snd/controlC1
pulseaudi  1129 user   42u      CHR     116,32      0t0       7233 /dev/snd/controlC1

 

When using TVtime (sound not working)

/usr/sbin/lsof | grep \/dev\/snd

shows:

pulseaudi  1129 user   20u      CHR      116,0      0t0       3030 /dev/snd/controlC0
pulseaudi  1129 user   36u      CHR     116,32      0t0       7233 /dev/snd/controlC1
pulseaudi  1129 user   42u      CHR     116,32      0t0       7233 /dev/snd/controlC1

 

Why is sound not working in TVtime? Does TVtime not work with pulse audio?

[Lexicon]

read man tvtime. Please comment on the mixer settings and other settings.

An example would be the creation of icons from the command

 

tvtime --mixer=/dev/mixer0:line

 

Lex

Edited March 5, 2010 by Lexicon

[kfoss]

boatman9,

 

There's a number of problems these days getting TV tuners to work under linux. I personally started with my HCW Win-TV PCI, upgraded to a HCW PVR-150, then tried an HVR-950 (similar to your HVR-850), and finally turned back to another Win-TV PCI. Once I recently upgraded to a new AMD Athlon II 235e, I had adequate performance to pull out my HVR-950 again and get it working.

 

The issue comes with the path that the video and audio follow and how they are encoded/decoded. The old Win-TV was rather simple as the audio was separated and patched from the tuner's audio out to the sound card's line in. Lexicon's recommendation is based on the audio following this path.

 

With the HVR-850/900/950/950Q USB tuners, the audio and video are being received as a digital stream, meaning that the audio and video components are truly integrated. To watch the TV, you need an application that decode the stream into the audio and video components and play them. Kaffeine has been programmed to do this which is why you get the audio (notice there is no "Play Analog TV" in Kaffeine). TVTime is designed to play analog TV and this normally means that the audio comes from the sound card and hence the mixer. Because the audio from the HVR-850/.../950Q tuners don't have the audio path through the sound card, you can't hear the sound.

 

Now there are a number of work arounds. You can use MPlayer, which is what I use. (I don't have the command line with me as I'm at work). You can also use TVTime with a "pipe" (|) command that uses both "sox" and "arecord" to get the sound and picture; there are numerous pages explaining the methods if you Google "tvtime sox arecord". I have personally had problems getting this to work at all, and those people that do complain about the voice sync. I'd stick with the mplayer option for overall watching quality, though the ease of the TV experience is not there.

 

Please let me know if you want my MPlayer command and I'll get to the forum.

[boatman9]

kfoss,

 

Thanks for those comments. I was able to watch TV using mplayer and the HVR-850. I used a command line as follows:

 

mplayer tv://9 -tv driver=v4l2:alsa:immediatemode=0:adevice=hw.Em28xxAudio,0:norm=ntsc:chanlist=us-cable -vf pp=ci,hqdn3d=4:3:6

 

You'll notice I used the ci deinterlace filter. Of all the deinterlace filters it seemed to do best.