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Thread: 5.1 audio

  1. #1
    Join Date
    Sep 2012
    Beans
    24

    5.1 audio

    https://help.ubuntu.com/community/DigitalAC-3Pulseaudio

    Ok this is so badly run through I can't even find words.
    this applies to a very specific case i think my computers not in. First of all i have pulse not alsa.
    Can somebody explain this all to me, I'm a newbie and this language is beyond barbaric.
    I can do compiling and command lines but they don't run you through what packages you should have, which ones you shouldn't, they don't even make an attempt at trying to clean things up before making you go down the road of the irreversible. I got two errors on the first install command and decide to stop there. the config file didn't even exist!
    and a52 is nowhere to be found.

  2. #2
    Join Date
    Apr 2009
    Location
    Aotearoha
    Beans
    2,692
    Distro
    Ubuntu 10.04 Lucid Lynx

    Re: 5.1 audio

    It is misleading..
    The a52 plugin is an alsa plugin device that pulse audio can also use & so make it system wide for all the std distro apps..
    The a52 plugin is an encoder that inputs 6 ch digital PCM & encodes to AC3 bit stream with various bitrates & outputs over iec958 device at 48KHz clock.

    Pulse audio lets you control/switch output devices etc with "pavucontrol" & not via obscure control files etc.

    The a52 plugin is part of the alsa plugins source code but *buntu has to strip the non-free codecs. So it is missing from std *buntu.

    The ffmpeg/avconv libav packages are also stripped (default install).

    If you have *buntu then you have alsa & pulse..

    As you already alluded to: "Do I even need this ?"
    Probably not..
    The a52 plugin allows:
    - games to output AC3-5.1 over S/PDIF without having native AC3 output.
    - play multi-channel digital audio without HDMI HDA
    - s/w dmix volume control of AC3/DTS playback
    - 2 ch upmix to 5.1 (gross)

    Pulse (*buntu 12.04) already:-
    - supports AC3/DTS pass-thru' iec958 or HDMI
    - never stops you using alsa device directly

    Apps like Clementine VLC mplayer mythtv XBMC allow you to directly output to any audio device.
    VLC, mplayer, mythtv & XBMC have the a52 encoder builtin & can output AC3/DTS directly to external AVR/HTamp.
    Those apps output AC3/DTS (& HDA over HDMI) un-decoded if you want..

    The first line of your post #1 prob still applies..
    Last edited by BicyclerBoy; November 27th, 2012 at 02:17 AM.

  3. #3
    Join Date
    Oct 2010
    Location
    London
    Beans
    482
    Distro
    Ubuntu 12.04 Precise Pangolin

    Re: 5.1 audio

    If I google 'Ubuntu surround sound', I get several results along these lines, this seems like a much easier way...

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