[alsa-devel] ca0106 SPDIF Output Problems
Hi,
I am having some problems getting sound out of a ca0106 card using SPDIF. I have enabled SPDIF output using alsamixer. Some programs produce sound, and others stubbornly don't.
I need some hints about what to try next, what information I could look at, to be able to diagnose some factor common to the failures, and hopefully the cause.
I am familiar with part of the driver, I have already written a patch which used to enable 44.1kHz output on an earlier Ubuntu.
Anyway, the details are all recorded below. I would appreciate it if a patient person could have a look through and throw me some ideas.
Thanks, Ben Stanley.
I did a git checkout yesterday and built alsa 1.0.17rc3 on Ubuntu 8.04 kernel 2.6.24-19-generic.
I used the following configure options: ./configure --with-debug=full --with-cards=ca0106 --with-moddir=/lib/modules/`uname -r`/alsa-driver-orig
(I am using the --with-moddir to avoid clobbering the distro alsa modules. I am selecting which modules to use by editing /etc/depmod.conf and changing the priority order, and then re-running depmod. I can verify the result by checking /var/lib/`uname -r`/modules.dep .)
Everything builds and installs without any warnings or errors.
So, after all that, I tested three applications: MythTV xine speaker-test
My sound output is via SPDIF to a Yamaha RX-V557 digital amplifier.
I only get sound out of MythTV. I get nothing out of xine (playing flacs) or out of speaker-test. However, I do get signal out of xine playing DVDs.
Details: ================================================================ speaker-test --device-hw:0,0 --channels=2 --rate=48000 This should work, but instead it produces no SPDIF output. The amplifier shows no digital signals.
root@mythtv:/proc/asound/card0/pcm0p/sub0# cat hw_params access: RW_INTERLEAVED format: S16_LE subformat: STD channels: 2 rate: 48000 (48000/1) period_size: 4096 buffer_size: 16384
================================================================ Testing with xine playing a 44100Hz stereo S16_LE flac: root@mythtv:/proc/asound/card0/pcm0p/sub0# cat hw_params access: MMAP_INTERLEAVED format: S16_LE subformat: STD channels: 2 rate: 48000 (48000/1) period_size: 1024 buffer_size: 8192
The amplifier says 'Unknown Digital', NO SOUND PRODUCED.
================================================================Testing with xine playing 'Riverdance' DVD in DTS surround with AC3 Passthrough: Sound output WORKS Amplifier says 48kHz DTS root@mythtv:/proc/asound/card0/pcm0p/sub0# cat hw_params access: RW_INTERLEAVED format: S16_LE subformat: STD channels: 2 rate: 48000 (48000/1) period_size: 2048 buffer_size: 16384
================================================================ Running MythTV: Configured to open ALSA:hw:0,0 directly. root@mythtv:/proc/asound/card0/pcm0p/sub0# cat hw_params access: MMAP_INTERLEAVED format: S16_LE subformat: STD channels: 2 rate: 48000 (48000/1) period_size: 8192 buffer_size: 16384
The amplifier identifies this as a 48kHz PCM signal. Sound output WORKS. ================================================================
As a general observation, this problem was present in Ubuntu 7.10, but was 'intermittent' (I used to be able to get speaker-test and xine playing flacs to work most of the time.) The failures now seem to be permanent after upgrading to Ubuntu 8.04, whether latest alsa-git is installed or not.
Now, I need some ideas for what to look for here. I can't see differentiating factor between things that work and things that do not. Perhaps I need to look at some registers. I don't know what relationship the files at /proc/asound/CA0106/ca0106_reg* have to the registers declared in alsa-kmirror/pcm/ca0106/ca0106.h but I think I understand the registers from the header file.
Ideas please?
Once I get this sorted out I can test my patch allowing 44100Hz sampling rates to be output to SPDIF. At the moment this bug is preventing me from testing...
Thanks, Ben Stanley.
On Thu, 2008-07-03 at 22:09 +1000, Ben Stanley wrote:
Hi,
I am having some problems getting sound out of a ca0106 card using SPDIF. I have enabled SPDIF output using alsamixer. Some programs produce sound, and others stubbornly don't.
After much messing around, this problem is now understood. I have a workaround. I want to start a discussion about the best way of solving it permanently.
It turned out to be that the 'audio' bit of the SPDIF AES setting was set to 'non-audio'. This has the unfortunate effect of preventing any PCM stream from working, while Dolby Digital and DTS work just fine. This explains the reported symptoms perfectly.
(I eventually tracked down the problem by examining the state and meaning of all of the registers used by the ca0106 driver, for working and non-working streams. I narrowed my search by diffing the register dumps and focusing on the differing register values.)
The non-audio bit is bit 2 in AES0. Setting AES0=0x2 asserts the 'non-audio' bit (DD or DTS), while setting AES0=0x0 indicates audio (PCM) data.
It seems that MythTV understands how to set the AES settings, and correctly sets the non-audio bit when playing DD and DTS streams. When it has finished playing such a stream, it restores the previous AES settings. Unfortunately, if MythTV crashes before restoring the settings, the non-audio setting remains. Other programs which don't pay attention to the AES settings then fail to output any sound (because their PCM data is incorrectly marked as 'non-audio').
Once the 'non-audio' bit is set in such a manner, not even a re-boot fixes the issue. This is because the state of the driver is saved by alsactl to the file /var/lib/alsa/asound.state on shutdown, and restores it on boot. My temporary fix was to edit (This information is probably specific to ca0106)
control.18 { comment.access 'read write' comment.type IEC958 comment.count 1 iface PCM name 'IEC958 Playback Default' index 1 value '0282000200000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000' } The fix is to clear the 2 in the first byte of the hexadecimal value. In my case, the value is now '0082000200000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000' After editing and saving the file, re-load the configuration using the command # alsactl restore If you have more than one card, check the man page for the appropriate incantation.
If you don't want to modify your settings permanently, you can use the following commands to test if this problem affects you by manually setting the AES values on the command line, as follows (this is probably generic to all cards with SPDIF):
For example, this works for me: speaker-test --device=iec958:AES0=0x0,AES1=0x92,AES2=0x10,AES3=0x2 --channels=2
and this produces no audio output for me (by setting the non-audio flag): speaker-test --device=iec958:AES0=0x2,AES1=0x92,AES2=0x10,AES3=0x2 --channels=2
So in summary, the problem occurred because most applications don't seem to understand/assert AES settings for SPDIF. In the case where it is set to 'audio', this is fine, but where the registers are set to 'non-audio', this causes *no audio output* for all PCM streams.
Now for some hard questions. I want to start some discussion around these points before I try to solve this problem permanently.
* Whos responsibility is it to set the state of the audio/non-audio bit? ALSA-driver? alsa-lib? application? I believe it should be *set* appropriately for each opened stream. * Is there a good reason why iecset does not work with device names like hw:0,0 , hw:0,1 , hw:0,2 etc? (I could probably fix this...)
On Thu, 2008-07-03 at 22:09 +1000, Ben Stanley wrote:
Hi,
I am having some problems getting sound out of a ca0106 card using SPDIF. I have enabled SPDIF output using alsamixer. Some programs produce sound, and others stubbornly don't.
I need some hints about what to try next, what information I could look at, to be able to diagnose some factor common to the failures, and hopefully the cause.
I am familiar with part of the driver, I have already written a patch which used to enable 44.1kHz output on an earlier Ubuntu.
Anyway, the details are all recorded below. I would appreciate it if a patient person could have a look through and throw me some ideas.
Thanks, Ben Stanley.
I did a git checkout yesterday and built alsa 1.0.17rc3 on Ubuntu 8.04 kernel 2.6.24-19-generic.
I used the following configure options: ./configure --with-debug=full --with-cards=ca0106 --with-moddir=/lib/modules/`uname -r`/alsa-driver-orig
(I am using the --with-moddir to avoid clobbering the distro alsa modules. I am selecting which modules to use by editing /etc/depmod.conf and changing the priority order, and then re-running depmod. I can verify the result by checking /var/lib/`uname -r`/modules.dep .)
Everything builds and installs without any warnings or errors.
So, after all that, I tested three applications: MythTV xine speaker-test
My sound output is via SPDIF to a Yamaha RX-V557 digital amplifier.
I only get sound out of MythTV. I get nothing out of xine (playing flacs) or out of speaker-test. However, I do get signal out of xine playing DVDs.
Details:
speaker-test --device-hw:0,0 --channels=2 --rate=48000 This should work, but instead it produces no SPDIF output. The amplifier shows no digital signals.
root@mythtv:/proc/asound/card0/pcm0p/sub0# cat hw_params access: RW_INTERLEAVED format: S16_LE subformat: STD channels: 2 rate: 48000 (48000/1) period_size: 4096 buffer_size: 16384
================================================================ Testing with xine playing a 44100Hz stereo S16_LE flac: root@mythtv:/proc/asound/card0/pcm0p/sub0# cat hw_params access: MMAP_INTERLEAVED format: S16_LE subformat: STD channels: 2 rate: 48000 (48000/1) period_size: 1024 buffer_size: 8192
The amplifier says 'Unknown Digital', NO SOUND PRODUCED.
================================================================Testing with xine playing 'Riverdance' DVD in DTS surround with AC3 Passthrough: Sound output WORKS Amplifier says 48kHz DTS root@mythtv:/proc/asound/card0/pcm0p/sub0# cat hw_params access: RW_INTERLEAVED format: S16_LE subformat: STD channels: 2 rate: 48000 (48000/1) period_size: 2048 buffer_size: 16384
================================================================ Running MythTV: Configured to open ALSA:hw:0,0 directly. root@mythtv:/proc/asound/card0/pcm0p/sub0# cat hw_params access: MMAP_INTERLEAVED format: S16_LE subformat: STD channels: 2 rate: 48000 (48000/1) period_size: 8192 buffer_size: 16384
The amplifier identifies this as a 48kHz PCM signal. Sound output WORKS. ================================================================
As a general observation, this problem was present in Ubuntu 7.10, but was 'intermittent' (I used to be able to get speaker-test and xine playing flacs to work most of the time.) The failures now seem to be permanent after upgrading to Ubuntu 8.04, whether latest alsa-git is installed or not.
Now, I need some ideas for what to look for here. I can't see differentiating factor between things that work and things that do not. Perhaps I need to look at some registers. I don't know what relationship the files at /proc/asound/CA0106/ca0106_reg* have to the registers declared in alsa-kmirror/pcm/ca0106/ca0106.h but I think I understand the registers from the header file.
Ideas please?
Once I get this sorted out I can test my patch allowing 44100Hz sampling rates to be output to SPDIF. At the moment this bug is preventing me from testing...
Thanks, Ben Stanley.
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