XAWTV - TV on my Linux PC - picture but no sound

[Nerderello]

recently bought and installed a cheap TV tuner card for my PC. I use the Intel i810 chipset on the motherboard for video and sound (AC97 codec). Both video and sound (I can cat a .wav file at the /dev/dsp and get it produced in sound) work fine on other applications.

bttv autodetected the card (card=23) and the tuner (which I believe it got wrong). I get picture but not sound. Now, I've tried loading all of the different card types (1-55 by rmmod bttv followed by modprobe bttv card=nn) and I have selected tuner type 2 (again with rmmod tuner modeprobe tuner type=2) as this works better, than the autodetected Alps tuner, with this Samsung card.

I've tried the latest xawtv and motv, under Gnome, KDE and X (failsafe on my Redhat 8.0 box).

I've gone through the documentation and tried out all of the 'soluitions' for sound problems, but still no joy.

Anybody got any ideas?

thanks
Nerderello

[e_dreamer]

your prblem may not lie in your tv card. tv cards generaly need a lead to go fromt he soundcard (externaly) into the line in for the sound card of the computer. well, all the ones ive seen have. I'm sure you've noticed that though.

have you tried just plugging your speakers into your tv card instead of your sound output, if you get no sound from that, then the problem is definatly with your tv card.

if that is the case, what make is it? i can't help any more without know what kind of card it is.

[Nerderello]

Looking on the back of this card (bought from The Computer Store as an own brand - PC Essentials - cheap and cheerful) there is a standard TV aerial socket and a video in socket (looks like a standard audio socket from my hi fi, but says Video on it). I've tried plugging from the Video socket to the Line In socket (on a trial and error basis) but nothing happened.

Thanks for your input

Nerderello

[Nerderello]

found the answer. Well, actually a chap at Sourceforge helped me find it.

What I needed to do was get something called sox to copy the sound from the card to my audio card :- sox -t ossdsp -w -s /dev/dsp2 -t ossdsp /dev/dsp

Of course it wasn't quite that easy. First I had to create the /dev/dsp2, for which I used the MAKEDEV utility from the /dev subdirectory. But first (told you it wasn't straight forwards) I had to add a line in /etc/dev.d/linux-2.4 to have a dsp2 with a number of 35 (you'll see what I mean when you start delving). The MAKEDEV knew how to create the /dev/dsp2.

Then I had to do a 'modprobe btaudio' which connects the TV card with /dev/dsp2. Then I started sox (see above) and low and behold I got sound.

However, I am experiencing some lip synch problems that I'm looking into.

have fun

Nerderello

[sarumont]

Wow...glad that you figured it out.

[PhedUp]

found the answer. Well, actually a chap at Sourceforge helped me find it.

What I needed to do was get something called sox to copy the sound from the card to my audio card :- sox -t ossdsp -w -s /dev/dsp2 -t ossdsp /dev/dsp

Of course it wasn't quite that easy. First I had to create the /dev/dsp2, for which I used the MAKEDEV utility from the /dev subdirectory. But first (told you it wasn't straight forwards) I had to add a line in /etc/dev.d/linux-2.4 to have a dsp2 with a number of 35 (you'll see what I mean when you start delving). The MAKEDEV knew how to create the /dev/dsp2.

Then I had to do a 'modprobe btaudio' which connects the TV card with /dev/dsp2. Then I started sox (see above) and low and behold I got sound.

However, I am experiencing some lip synch problems that I'm looking into.

have fun

Nerderello

Cool.... I've had this same problem for some time now.... I'll try this in the near future...

this_site_does_not_exist rocks!!

[Anonymous]

I would recommend using "mplayer" http://www.mplayerhq.hu to view TV. Or any multimedia for that matter...

I prefer it over xawtv. If you require any help in setup, post back....

[raymondobasildon]

I just thought as I'd solved a similar problem of no sound with a Hauppauge WinTV Theatre PCI card on SUSE Linux 10.0 that it may be useful to others if I stuck the answer here.

I was using kdetv. All sound in everything else in the system was fine. The picture was fine, but no sound.

On the kdetv menu:
Settings . kdetv settings . Sounds
Under Mixer Driver Selection:
change ALSA Mixer Plugin to OSS Mixer Plugin.

I think this is in effect similar to what you did. I just thought it may be useful to others