LinuxQuestions.org - audio capture on Fedora Core 4

Hi forum members,

The problem I have, has always been a kind of pain in the ass, even in windows, but I got it working eventually, except this time. Recording audio from mic or line in. I need that to use teamspeak (link) and to record a show from TV with my crappy Chronos Shuttle II with a SAA7133 chipset.

The tv card does not support direct audio, as far as I know, only through a loopback cable to the audio card. The manual for windows instructs the user to use the cable and no alternative is given. mencoder gives me some output about the tvcard too:

Code:

Selected device: LifeView FlyVIDEO2000

 Tuner cap: STEREO LANG1 LANG2

 Tuner rxs: MONO

 Capabilites:  video capture  video overlay  VBI capture device  tuner  read/write  streaming

Yes, it's not the Shuttle, but it's the correct one none the less. I guess there should be "audio capture" too, to have direct capturing without the sound card?

Current stand:
Using Fedora Core 4 (alsa) with some livna RPM, not related to audio stuff.

The tvcard and sound card are in PCI slots of my nforce2 motherboard, which has a some intergrated realtech sound chip, which is really crap. So I have it disabled from BIOS setup.
Soundblaster Live! 5.1 Digital got installed during FC4 install automatically.

Shuttle II is enabled with the saa7134 module with the following options (modprobe.conf):

Code:

alias char-major-81 saa7134

options saa7134 card=3 tuner=23

I tried adding

Code:

oss=1 dsp_nr=3 mixer_nr=3

but it didn't work, the /dev/dsp3 and /dev/mixer3 were not created. Not much of a surprise really.

Anyway, loading the module with these (card=3 tuner=23) options gives me a working tvcard. I see the picture and hear the sound through the loopback cable, which I control with KMix or directly from tvtime - it is the same line-in slider which is moved.

My mic works fine too - I can hear myself. Just can't make anything to record audio from it.

To enable capturing I checked that I have sufficient permissions for /dev/dsp and /dev/mixer, even modified them to 666 and checked that nothing else uses it, like teamspeak. kilx is the user i'm logged in as.

Code:

crw-rw-rw-  1 kilx root 14, 3 Nov  4 21:54 /dev/dsp

crw-rw-rw-  1 kilx root 14, 0 Nov  4 21:54 /dev/mixer

KMix setup:
Output:
http://62.65.250.202:666/~kilx/lq_au...re/output0.png
Switches:
http://62.65.250.202:666/~kilx/lq_au.../switches0.png
Different Input settings I have tried to get Line In or Mic to capture:
http://62.65.250.202:666/~kilx/lq_au...ure/input1.png
http://62.65.250.202:666/~kilx/lq_au...ure/input3.png
http://62.65.250.202:666/~kilx/lq_au...ure/input0.png
http://62.65.250.202:666/~kilx/lq_au...ure/input2.png
The mencoder line I use to capture from line in:

Code:

mencoder -tv driver=v4l2:device=/dev/video0:chanlist=europe-east:adevice=/dev/dsp:volume=100:width=640:height=480 tv://99 -o test.avi -ovc xvid -xvidencopts bitrate=678 -oac mp3lame -lameopts vbr=3 -endpos 2

I only get the picture. To be sure it's not a problem with mp3lame I tried lavc:

Code:

mencoder -tv driver=v4l2:device=/dev/video0:chanlist=europe-east:adevice=/dev/dsp:volume=100:width=640:height=480 tv://99 -o test.avi -ovc xvid -xvidencopts bitrate=678 -oac lavc -lavcopts acodec=mp3:abitrate=96 -endpos 2

Get the same result, nice picture and a blank soundtrack. It records silence. Although during the 2 seconds mencoder is recording (-endpos 2) I hear the sound allright!

I also tried doing something like this, I hope the values for adevice were OK.

Code:

cat /proc/asound/pcm

00-00: emu10k1 : ADC Capture/Standard PCM Playback : playback 32 : capture 1

00-01: emu10k1 mic : Mic Capture : capture 1

00-02: emu10k1 efx : Multichannel Capture/PT Playback : playback 8 : capture 1

00-03: emu10k1 : Multichannel Playback : playback 1

...

mencoder -tv driver=v4l2:device=/dev/video0:chanlist=europe-east:alsa:adevice=hw.0,0:audiorate=44100:volume=100:width=640:height=480 tv://99 -o test.avi -ovc xvid -xvidencopts bitrate=678 -oac mp3lame -lameopts vbr=3 -endpos 2

mencoder -tv driver=v4l2:device=/dev/video0:chanlist=europe-east:alsa:adevice=hw.0,1:audiorate=44100:volume=100:width=640:height=480 tv://99 -o test.avi -ovc xvid -xvidencopts bitrate=678 -oac mp3lame -lameopts vbr=3 -endpos 2

mencoder -tv driver=v4l2:device=/dev/video0:chanlist=europe-east:alsa:adevice=hw.0,2:audiorate=44100:volume=100:width=640:height=480 tv://99 -o test.avi -ovc xvid -xvidencopts bitrate=678 -oac mp3lame -lameopts vbr=3 -endpos 2

mencoder -tv driver=v4l2:device=/dev/video0:chanlist=europe-east:alsa:adevice=hw.0,3:audiorate=44100:volume=100:width=640:height=480 tv://99 -o test.avi -ovc xvid -xvidencopts bitrate=678 -oac mp3lame -lameopts vbr=3 -endpos 2

The first three (0,0; 0,1 and 0,2) record silence. 0,3 gives an error:

Code:

v4l2: current audio mode is : MONO

Error opening audio: No such file or directory

============ Sorry, this file format is not recognized/supported =============

=== If this file is an AVI, ASF or MPEG stream, please contact the author! ===

Cannot open demuxer.



Exiting...

With hw.0,1 I even talked into the mic. But when playing back test.avi there was only silence.

I have googled quite a bit now and don't really know what else to try. I had it working in FC3 with the same hardware not so long ago. Everything else works, so what could possibly be wrong? I even disabled SELinux and tried all the different possibilities without it. I tried using /dev/adsp.

Any suggestions are appreciated, thanks!

PS: Are the livna.org servers down right now?