[WORKAROUND] Surround sound output intermittent.

tom.ty89 · 2016-01-09 18:33:21

But the profile does not have port and shouldn't have plug state? (Becareful if you use an output+input profile, the plug state might belong to the input jack)

quequotion · 2016-01-09 18:58:48

tom.ty89 wrote:

But the profile does not have port and shouldn't have plug state? (Becareful if you use an output+input profile, the plug state might belong to the input jack)

I do use an output+input profile, but the drops have been the same without the input profile attached. I was wondering if perhaps pulseaudio was having trouble deciding if the fiber optic plug belongs to the stereo or 5.1 output, since they are physically the same output.

Last edited by quequotion (2016-01-09 18:59:58)

tom.ty89 · 2016-01-10 09:27:48

Could be. I never felt Pulse has been sane when dealing with a52 anyway.

tom.ty89 · 2016-01-14 13:47:32

For your information,
http://mailman.alsa-project.org/piperma … 02962.html
http://git.alsa-project.org/?p=alsa-plu … 2d7ac02d38

Apparently pulse does not care about the channel layout/order reported by a52, just like mplayer, so it's not affected by the issue. Can be confirmed by checking whether "channel map" of the sink is in "ALSA order":

front-left,front-right,rear-left,rear-right,front-center,lfe

with

pacmd list-sinks

Last edited by tom.ty89 (2016-01-14 13:53:21)

quequotion · 2016-01-16 17:27:34

tom.ty89 wrote:

Can be confirmed by checking whether "channel map" of the sink is in "ALSA order":
front-left,front-right,rear-left,rear-right,front-center,lfe
with
pacmd list-sinks

I've never tried to use the plugin without pulse; I suspect I am not the only one to do so.

I also noticed something very strange: all the channel testing programs are very distinct, but mplayer seems utterly incapable of surround sound output (it just can't; no configuration or command line options I've tried so far will break it's insitence on 2 channels).

EDIT: It would probably work to do passthrough to the alsa driver with mplayer; but this is impossible with pulseaudio running (pulse wants to control hardware access), and I don't want to go through the misery of having to restructure my audio system depending on what kind of audio I'd like to listen to at any given moment.

EDIT again: Looks like I'm not alone. There's a patch from Gentoo that mplayerhq has been ignoring for quite some time... giving it a try; it works!

Last edited by quequotion (2016-01-17 18:14:04)

tom.ty89 · 2016-01-17 16:08:34

Hmm I thought you've been using the ALSA pulse plugin with mplayer (e.g. -ao alsa:device=pulse or -ao alsa with pulseaudio-alsa installed). Yeah I noticed that mplayer cannot work with -ao pulse AND -channels 6 sometime ago, and realized later it was a (long-time?) bug:
https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php … 0#p1593880

And honestly, I see no reason to use mplayer instead of mpv these days. It's not even on par when in comparison.

quequotion · 2016-01-17 18:45:00

Incoming off-topic rant!

tom.ty89 wrote:

And honestly, I see no reason to use mplayer instead of mpv these days. It's not even on par when in comparison.

I don't remember the reason now, but I have tried a lot of other players--though I don't recall specifically testing mpv, it could be a viable alternative--and eventually came to the conclusion that the only way forward was to stick with mplayer. I've been through a variety of dissapointments when it comes to OSS video players, mostly due to stalled development (various ffmpeg-based players), poorly concieved frameworks (every gstreamer-based player eventually suffers a meltdown), or superfluous interfaces (vlc--though I appreciate that it is the most capable player available).

The thing is, I have to have software that reliably works. People come to my house and see linux on my computer and I'm the only person they've ever met who is using it (there are two other people in the city I live in, to my knowledge--one IT professional and one I conviced to install linux rather than pirate windows). If any bug, no matter how insignificant or quickly dealt with, appears in a social situation, they never fail to dismiss the whole of open-source software as shoddy. I don't know what it is about seeing bugs in open source software that is different from seeing bugs in proprietary software, but even the tiniest problem in any program elicits an immediate attack on the whole concept, every time; whereas when the same people ask me to fix their Windows or MacOs problems--and I do--they seem to think it's perfectly normal to have such problems (and perfectly normal to be completely helpless when something goes wrong).

Last edited by quequotion (2016-01-17 18:49:43)

tom.ty89 · 2016-01-17 19:05:42

I'll replace:

stalled development (various ffmpeg-based players)

with

stalled development (e.g. mplayer)

I wonder if mplayer still gets any update IN TERMS OF A PLAYER (instead of just being repeatedly rebuilt with newer version ffmpeg), while mpv really fixed tons of shit (especially things that matters much like -ao/-vo) in it and has gotten really elegant now IHMO.

I never found most players in Windows world much better though. mpc-hc is the only one I found comparable/slightly better to mpv, or maybe even to the almost-dead mplayer.

P.S. sorry for keep offtopicking.

Last edited by tom.ty89 (2016-01-17 19:05:57)

quequotion · 2016-01-17 19:47:01

tom.ty89 wrote:

I'll replace:
stalled development (various ffmpeg-based players)
with
stalled development (e.g. mplayer)

lol, you're right about that. It's developers have ignored the ao=pulse channels=6 problem for over a year.

mpv really fixed tons of shit (especially things that matters much like -ao/-vo) in it and has gotten really elegant now IHMO.

Yeah, giving it a try now and it looks like it will serve my purposes well.

P.S. sorry for keep offtopicking.

No worries. One could make the argument that the matter of surround sound support is actually this complex: fixing the problems with alsa and pulseaudio are just one part of it; installing and configuring applications that support the output is also necessary.

Last edited by quequotion (2016-01-17 19:47:12)

Arch Linux

#26 2016-01-09 18:33:21

Re: [WORKAROUND] Surround sound output intermittent.

#27 2016-01-09 18:58:48

Re: [WORKAROUND] Surround sound output intermittent.

#28 2016-01-10 09:27:48

Re: [WORKAROUND] Surround sound output intermittent.

#29 2016-01-14 13:47:32

Re: [WORKAROUND] Surround sound output intermittent.

#30 2016-01-16 17:27:34

Re: [WORKAROUND] Surround sound output intermittent.

#31 2016-01-17 16:08:34

Re: [WORKAROUND] Surround sound output intermittent.

#32 2016-01-17 18:45:00

Re: [WORKAROUND] Surround sound output intermittent.

#33 2016-01-17 19:05:42

Re: [WORKAROUND] Surround sound output intermittent.

#34 2016-01-17 19:47:01

Re: [WORKAROUND] Surround sound output intermittent.

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