246 lines
11 KiB
Groff
246 lines
11 KiB
Groff
." Automatically generated text
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.TH 7 "August 31, 2006" "OSS" "OSS Devices"
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.SH NAME
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oss_sblive - Creative Labs Sound Blaster Live/Audigy family driver.
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.SH DESCRIPTION
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Open Sound System driver for Creative Labs Sound Blaster Live!, Audigy,
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Audigy2, Audigy2-Value and sound cards.
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The sblive driver supports:
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o 8-48Khz Playback/Recording
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o 8 or 16 bits
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o SPDIF digital output and Input
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o Multi channel 5.1 (Live!) and 7.1 (Audigy) output.
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AC3 passthrough is only supported on Audigy series of the soundcards.
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.SH OTHER SIMILAR CARDS
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There are several Sound Blaster cards that are also called as Live or
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Audigy. However these cards are based on entirely different hardware design
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and they are not compatible with this driver.
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.IP \(bu 3
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Sound Blaster Live 5.1 card is used in some Dell machines but it's
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driven by the emu10k1x driver.
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.IP \(bu 3
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Sound Blaster AudigyLS and Live 7.1 models are driven by the audigyls
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driver of OSS.
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.SH SBLIVE COMBO SPDIF AND AUDIO JACKS
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Most models of Live! and Audigy cards have an orange combo jack that is
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used both for the analog center/LFE output and for digital DIN (S/PDIF)
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output. The output mode is selected by a driver configuration option
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(seel below) which should be set to proper value depending on the actual
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speaker configuration.
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.IP \(bu 3
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Noisy analog center/LFE output. The orange combo jack at the rear plate
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of the Live/Audigy card is shared between the digital DIN and the analog
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center/LFE outputs. In digital DIN mode (default) you will hear very noisy
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output from the speakers connected to this output jack. If you have analog
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center/LFE (subwoofer) speakers connected then you need to turn off the
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sblive_digital_din (or audigy_digital_din) option.
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.IP \(bu 3
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There is a new configuration option to enable/disable the "digital DIN"
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output. By default the digital DIN interface is enabled which disables the
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center/LFE analog output (uses the same combo jack). By setting the
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sblive_digital_din (or audigy_digital_din) option to 0 you can enable the
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analog C/LFE output feature. When digital DIN is disabled you can still get
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S/PDIF (or AC3) output from the digital (optical/coax) outputs of the
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optional livedrive unit.
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.SH SBLIVE MIXER
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SB Live cards have actually two mixer chips. In OSS both of them are
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controlled together. However only limited set of features can be controlled
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using ordinary mixer programs (such as the mixer applet included in OSS).
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Majority of features can only be accessed using the ossmix and ossxmix
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programs included in OSS.
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The AC97 mixer is used to control volumes of the back bracket inputs (mic and
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line in) and the _analog_ CD input connector on the soundcard. The 'mic'
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volume controls the level of the rear bracket microphone input sent directly
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to the front (only front) speakers. The 'line' and 'cd' controls do the same
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for the back bracket line in connector and the on board analog CD input
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connector. It's usually recommended to set these volumes to 0.
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Another function of the AC97 mixer is selecting the signal that is passed to
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the master mixer (for example for recording). One of the 'mic', 'line' or
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'cd' signals can be routed to the master mixer by selecting that device as
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the recording source in the AC97 mixer. The 'rec' volume control slider can
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be used to adjust the signal strength. The 'igain' control doesn't usually
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have any effect but some hardware revisions may use it for controlling the
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microphone recording level.
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.SH SBLIVE MASTER MIXER
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Other mixer functions are handled by the DSP engine of the EMU 10k1 chip.
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Most input signals (including all digital signals and LiveDrive inputs).
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There are only two master mixer settings that can be controlled using all
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mixer programs. The 'vol' setting is the master output volume that affects
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both the front and rear speakers and the headphone output (digital output
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volumes are not affected). The 'pcm' setting controls volumes of all PCM
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playback channels (/dev/dsp#).
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In addition to volume sliders most inputs have a stereo VU meter pair
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(only in ossxmix) that can be used to monitor the input and to adjust the
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input levels properly.
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The master mixer consists of several sections that are:
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.IP \(bu 3
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Primary section: This section has two settings. The "spkmode" setting
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selects how front/rear speakers are used for PCM playback (outputs from
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programs using /dev/dsp#). The possible settings are FRONT, REAR and
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FRONT+REAR. The default is FRONT+REAR. Change this setting if you like to
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get PCM playback only from front or rear speakers. The "autoreset" flag is
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used to control the "/dev" section.
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.IP \(bu 3
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"/dev" section: This section controls the volumes of each /dev/dsp# device
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file supported by the device (there are 8 of them at this moment). These
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volumes will return back to maximum every time the device is opened. However
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this can be disabled by setting the 'autoreset' option to OFF. The ossxmix
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program has special ability to show the application using the particular
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/dev/dsp device (for layout reasons only the first 4 characters of the
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program name are shown).
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.IP \(bu 3
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The equalizer section: This section controls the graphic equalizer for
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front speakers only.
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.IP \(bu 3
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The front rear, and record sections: These three identical sections control
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the levels of external inputs and PCM playback (/dev/dsp# devices) to be
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sent to the front/rear speakers and to the recording device.
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The CD Analog audio will only be heard from the FRONT speakers.
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.SH SBLIVE RECORDING
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Before recording anything you need to set the volumes in the recording
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section properly. To enable recording from the AC97 connected inputs
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(mic, line in and analog CD) use the AC97 mixer to select the desired input
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and then tune the input level using the rec (and igain) setting.
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Finally set the 'ac97' slider in the record section of the master mixer so
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that the recording level is suitable.
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The OSS drivers permit recording any application that's currently playing.
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To record audio that's playing on any of the SB Live channels:
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.IP \(bu 3
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Turn down the AC97 control in the "record" section. This prevents any audio
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being fed to the soundcard from MIC/Line-in/CD-in from getting mixed with
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the audio produced by the application that's currently playing.
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.IP \(bu 3
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Type ossrecord -s<sampling rate> -b<bits/sample> -c<channels> test.wav
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.IP \(bu 3
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To stop recording press <Ctrl-c> and then you can play back the test.wav
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file using ossplay command.
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RECORDING ISSUES:
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In most cases noise is caused by the microphone input or some other
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(unused) input. Use the ossxmix program to turn off all unused inputs and
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finally save the current mixer settings (see below).
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Hint: Look at the VU meter panels of ossxmix. It's usually very easy to
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locate the noise source by looking which input has some signal coming from
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it.
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WARNING! If you turn off some of the signals in recording section or the
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AC97 mixer section this affects all subsequent recordings. Remember
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to raise the volume prior doing any recording. After that decrease
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the volumes again if necessary.
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.SH SBLIVE HARDWARE MIXING
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You can use /dev/oss/oss_sblive0/ pcm0-pcm7 to play multiple audio programs
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using the hardware mixing.
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Simply specify the device name with the application. A simple test is
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to do the following:
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ossplay -d/dev/oss/oss_sblive0/pcm0 <file1.wav> &
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ossplay -d/dev/oss/oss_sblive0/pcm1 <file2.wav> &
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ossplay -d/dev/oss/oss_sblive0/pcm2 <file3.wav> &
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You should hear all three wav files playing simultaneously.
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NOTE: Some apps may desire the old /dev/dspN names. e.g. /dev/dsp0 - /dev/dsp7.
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NOTE: You can increase the number of output devices from the standard 8 devices
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to 32 device. For this, run soundconf, select Set configuration options and
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look for the entry "sblive_device", now type any number between 1 and 32
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for the number of channels you wish. You can also do this manually by editing
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oss_sblive.conf and inserting sblive_devices=XX entry,
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e.g.: sblive_devices=27
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.SH CDROM CONNNECTIONS
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There are two alternative ways to connect audio signal from a CD-ROM drive tor
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the SB Live soundcard. You can use a (three wire) analog cable or a (2 wire)
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digital cable. OSS now supports both of these choices. Note that there are
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separate mixer settings for both of these connections.
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The analog CD-ROM wire is connected to the AC97 code chip and this method
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works in most cases. To route the analog CD -input to the (front) speakers
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you need to raise the volume of the 'cd' control in mixer. However if you
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like to hear the analog CD input both from the front and rears speakers you
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need to do this in slightly different way (please read the description of
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the mixer above).
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The digital connection works only with CD-ROM drives that has support for it.
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Note that some CD-ROM drives having this digital output connector use a
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different signal level than the one required by SB Live. This means that the
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digital connection doesn't work with all CD-ROM drives (no sound). If you
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have problems with the digital connection you should use the analog one.
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When using the the digital CD input you may need to adjust the 'digcd'
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volumes using ossxmix (or ossmix).
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It should be noted that SB Live works internally at 48 kHz. This means that
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all S/PDIF input signals are automatically sample rate converted to 48 kHz.
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If you record from a 44.1 kHz (CD-ROM) and save the result to a 44.1 kHz
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file the signal will be sample rate converted twice. First from the 44.1 kHz
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input to internal 48 kHz and then back to 44.1 kHz. While the sample rate
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converter of SB Live is very precise this will cause some change. This should
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not be any problem when doing audio recordings but it may cause unwanted
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results when transferring digital data (such as AC3/DTS) using the S/PDIF
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the interface.
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.SH CONFIGURATION OPTIONS
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.IP \(bu 3
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sblive_digital_din=<0|1> - This option is to enable/disable the "digital DIN"
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output of SB Live. By default the digital DIN interface is disabled which
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enables the center/LFE analog output (uses the same combo jack). By
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setting the sblive_digital_din option to 0 you can enable the analog
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Center/LFE output feature. When digital DIN is disabled you can still
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get S/PDIF (or AC3) output from the digital (optical/coax) outputs of the
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optional livedrive unit. Default: 0=analog output.
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.IP \(bu 3
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audigy_digital_din=<0|1> - same as "sblive_digital_din" option except for
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the Audigy soundcards. Default: 1=digital output.
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.IP \(bu 3
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sblive_devices=<1..32> - Number of audio devices to be configured.
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.SH LIMITATION
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.IP \(bu 3
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SB Live! devices will not work in Sparc systems due to PCI addressing
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limitations. Only Audigy/Audigy2 models work under Sparc.
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.IP \(bu 3
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EMU Wavetable MIDI synthesizer is not supported
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.IP \(bu 3
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AC3 passthrough only supported on Audigy/Audigy but not on SB Live! devices.
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.SH FILES
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/usr/lib/oss/conf/oss_sblive.conf Device configuration file
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.SH AUTHOR
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4Front Technologies
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