mixart.rst 3.4 KB

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  1. ==============================================================
  2. Alsa driver for Digigram miXart8 and miXart8AES/EBU soundcards
  3. ==============================================================
  4. Digigram <alsa@digigram.com>
  5. GENERAL
  6. =======
  7. The miXart8 is a multichannel audio processing and mixing soundcard
  8. that has 4 stereo audio inputs and 4 stereo audio outputs.
  9. The miXart8AES/EBU is the same with a add-on card that offers further
  10. 4 digital stereo audio inputs and outputs.
  11. Furthermore the add-on card offers external clock synchronisation
  12. (AES/EBU, Word Clock, Time Code and Video Synchro)
  13. The mainboard has a PowerPC that offers onboard mpeg encoding and
  14. decoding, samplerate conversions and various effects.
  15. The driver don't work properly at all until the certain firmwares
  16. are loaded, i.e. no PCM nor mixer devices will appear.
  17. Use the mixartloader that can be found in the alsa-tools package.
  18. VERSION 0.1.0
  19. =============
  20. One miXart8 board will be represented as 4 alsa cards, each with 1
  21. stereo analog capture 'pcm0c' and 1 stereo analog playback 'pcm0p' device.
  22. With a miXart8AES/EBU there is in addition 1 stereo digital input
  23. 'pcm1c' and 1 stereo digital output 'pcm1p' per card.
  24. Formats
  25. -------
  26. U8, S16_LE, S16_BE, S24_3LE, S24_3BE, FLOAT_LE, FLOAT_BE
  27. Sample rates : 8000 - 48000 Hz continuously
  28. Playback
  29. --------
  30. For instance the playback devices are configured to have max. 4
  31. substreams performing hardware mixing. This could be changed to a
  32. maximum of 24 substreams if wished.
  33. Mono files will be played on the left and right channel. Each channel
  34. can be muted for each stream to use 8 analog/digital outputs separately.
  35. Capture
  36. -------
  37. There is one substream per capture device. For instance only stereo
  38. formats are supported.
  39. Mixer
  40. -----
  41. <Master> and <Master Capture>
  42. analog volume control of playback and capture PCM.
  43. <PCM 0-3> and <PCM Capture>
  44. digital volume control of each analog substream.
  45. <AES 0-3> and <AES Capture>
  46. digital volume control of each AES/EBU substream.
  47. <Monitoring>
  48. Loopback from 'pcm0c' to 'pcm0p' with digital volume
  49. and mute control.
  50. Rem : for best audio quality try to keep a 0 attenuation on the PCM
  51. and AES volume controls which is set by 219 in the range from 0 to 255
  52. (about 86% with alsamixer)
  53. NOT YET IMPLEMENTED
  54. ===================
  55. - external clock support (AES/EBU, Word Clock, Time Code, Video Sync)
  56. - MPEG audio formats
  57. - mono record
  58. - on-board effects and samplerate conversions
  59. - linked streams
  60. FIRMWARE
  61. ========
  62. [As of 2.6.11, the firmware can be loaded automatically with hotplug
  63. when CONFIG_FW_LOADER is set. The mixartloader is necessary only
  64. for older versions or when you build the driver into kernel.]
  65. For loading the firmware automatically after the module is loaded, use a
  66. install command. For example, add the following entry to
  67. /etc/modprobe.d/mixart.conf for miXart driver:
  68. ::
  69. install snd-mixart /sbin/modprobe --first-time -i snd-mixart && \
  70. /usr/bin/mixartloader
  71. (for 2.2/2.4 kernels, add "post-install snd-mixart /usr/bin/vxloader" to
  72. /etc/modules.conf, instead.)
  73. The firmware binaries are installed on /usr/share/alsa/firmware
  74. (or /usr/local/share/alsa/firmware, depending to the prefix option of
  75. configure). There will be a miXart.conf file, which define the dsp image
  76. files.
  77. The firmware files are copyright by Digigram SA
  78. COPYRIGHT
  79. =========
  80. Copyright (c) 2003 Digigram SA <alsa@digigram.com>
  81. Distributable under GPL.