[MPlayer-users] mplayer TV tuner interface problems

[Jindrich Makovicka]

Catalin Muresan wrote:
> [Automatic answer: RTFM (read DOCS, FAQ), also read DOCS/bugreports.html]
> 
> 	Hello,
> 
> 	I have a bt878 tv tuner that i use with mplayer, the only problem i
> have is trying to adjust the volume. First my system specs: duron 650, 256mb
> ram, geforce2mx, bt878a tv card, sblive (emu10k), bt878a card connected to
> sblive on line port.
> 	mplayer works fine but because the tv is linked with a cable from
> the tv card to the soundcard it will not enable any audio driver so i cannot
> control the volume and because of this i tried 2 things:

you can use aumix,gmix/gnome-volume-control or similar utility to adjust 
line-in volume.

> 	1. first i tried to use immediatemode=0 so mplayer would get the
> audio from bt878 and play it to the soundcard, works but with a very
> significant drop in framerate, now i have like 5fps and mplayer already said
> "your system is too slow etc." while i checked with vmstat system is always
> above 80% idle.

there are some issues with immediatemode=0, so I generally don't 
recommend using it.

> 	2. i hacked the libao2/ao_oss.c part of the mplayer and i added a
> -mixer-channel so i can control not the PCM but the LINE channel of the
> mixer, which did not work because mplayer on tv mode does not use the audio
> output drivers. i tried to fool mplayer with -audiofile, worked but mplayer
> crashes when changing channels then.
> 
> 	also a smaller issue, video is delayed line 200ms (maybe because i
> use -vf pp=lb ?)

there can be a small delay because the audio goes directly to the 
soundcard, while video has to be processed/buffered.

you can also try using tvtime (tvtime.sf.net), which is specialized for 
real time tv watching.

Regards,

-- 
Jindrich Makovicka