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1 | Alsa driver for Digigram miXart8 and miXart8AES/EBU soundcards |
2 | Digigram <alsa@digigram.com> | |
3 | ||
4 | ||
5 | GENERAL | |
6 | ======= | |
7 | ||
8 | The miXart8 is a multichannel audio processing and mixing soundcard | |
9 | that has 4 stereo audio inputs and 4 stereo audio outputs. | |
10 | The miXart8AES/EBU is the same with a add-on card that offers further | |
11 | 4 digital stereo audio inputs and outputs. | |
12 | Furthermore the add-on card offers external clock synchronisation | |
13 | (AES/EBU, Word Clock, Time Code and Video Synchro) | |
14 | ||
15 | The mainboard has a PowerPC that offers onboard mpeg encoding and | |
16 | decoding, samplerate conversions and various effects. | |
17 | ||
18 | The driver don't work properly at all until the certain firmwares | |
19 | are loaded, i.e. no PCM nor mixer devices will appear. | |
20 | Use the mixartloader that can be found in the alsa-tools package. | |
21 | ||
22 | ||
23 | VERSION 0.1.0 | |
24 | ============= | |
25 | ||
26 | One miXart8 board will be represented as 4 alsa cards, each with 1 | |
27 | stereo analog capture 'pcm0c' and 1 stereo analog playback 'pcm0p' device. | |
28 | With a miXart8AES/EBU there is in addition 1 stereo digital input | |
29 | 'pcm1c' and 1 stereo digital output 'pcm1p' per card. | |
30 | ||
31 | Formats | |
32 | ------- | |
33 | U8, S16_LE, S16_BE, S24_3LE, S24_3BE, FLOAT_LE, FLOAT_BE | |
6c28f2c0 | 34 | Sample rates : 8000 - 48000 Hz continuously |
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35 | |
36 | Playback | |
37 | -------- | |
38 | For instance the playback devices are configured to have max. 4 | |
39 | substreams performing hardware mixing. This could be changed to a | |
40 | maximum of 24 substreams if wished. | |
41 | Mono files will be played on the left and right channel. Each channel | |
53cb4726 | 42 | can be muted for each stream to use 8 analog/digital outputs separately. |
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43 | |
44 | Capture | |
45 | ------- | |
46 | There is one substream per capture device. For instance only stereo | |
47 | formats are supported. | |
48 | ||
49 | Mixer | |
50 | ----- | |
51 | <Master> and <Master Capture> : analog volume control of playback and capture PCM. | |
52 | <PCM 0-3> and <PCM Capture> : digital volume control of each analog substream. | |
53 | <AES 0-3> and <AES Capture> : digital volume control of each AES/EBU substream. | |
54 | <Monitoring> : Loopback from 'pcm0c' to 'pcm0p' with digital volume | |
55 | and mute control. | |
56 | ||
57 | Rem : for best audio quality try to keep a 0 attenuation on the PCM | |
58 | and AES volume controls which is set by 219 in the range from 0 to 255 | |
59 | (about 86% with alsamixer) | |
60 | ||
61 | ||
62 | NOT YET IMPLEMENTED | |
63 | =================== | |
64 | ||
65 | - external clock support (AES/EBU, Word Clock, Time Code, Video Sync) | |
66 | - MPEG audio formats | |
67 | - mono record | |
68 | - on-board effects and samplerate conversions | |
69 | - linked streams | |
70 | ||
71 | ||
72 | FIRMWARE | |
73 | ======== | |
74 | ||
75 | [As of 2.6.11, the firmware can be loaded automatically with hotplug | |
76 | when CONFIG_FW_LOADER is set. The mixartloader is necessary only | |
77 | for older versions or when you build the driver into kernel.] | |
78 | ||
970e2486 LDM |
79 | For loading the firmware automatically after the module is loaded, use a |
80 | install command. For example, add the following entry to | |
81 | /etc/modprobe.d/mixart.conf for miXart driver: | |
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82 | |
83 | install snd-mixart /sbin/modprobe --first-time -i snd-mixart && \ | |
84 | /usr/bin/mixartloader | |
85 | (for 2.2/2.4 kernels, add "post-install snd-mixart /usr/bin/vxloader" to | |
86 | /etc/modules.conf, instead.) | |
87 | ||
88 | The firmware binaries are installed on /usr/share/alsa/firmware | |
89 | (or /usr/local/share/alsa/firmware, depending to the prefix option of | |
90 | configure). There will be a miXart.conf file, which define the dsp image | |
91 | files. | |
92 | ||
93 | The firmware files are copyright by Digigram SA | |
94 | ||
95 | ||
96 | COPYRIGHT | |
97 | ========= | |
98 | ||
99 | Copyright (c) 2003 Digigram SA <alsa@digigram.com> | |
fff9289b | 100 | Distributable under GPL. |