[NTLUG:Discuss] Sound Problems

[Peter A. Koren]

On Sun, 2005-07-10 at 21:58 -0500, Stuart Johnston wrote:
> Peter A. Koren wrote:
> > On Sun, 2005-07-10 at 17:51 -0500, Stuart Johnston wrote:
> > 
> >>Peter A. Koren wrote:
> >>
> >>>I got my DVD/CD player/burner working for DVD's (video and sound), but
> >>>playing audio CD's produces no sound running KsCD. KsCD shows that the
> >>>Music is playing and even gets the correct information from servers on
> >>>the net to add to the cddb data base. Double clicking on a wav file on a
> >>>data CD works, but regular audio CDs do not work. I'm running a RHEL
> >>>(Fedora 3) derived distribution on an AMD 64 based system. Sound seems
> >>>to work for everything but normal CD playing.
> >>>
> >>>Any hints?
> >>
> >>Make sure that you have an audio cable connected from your cd drive to 
> >>your sound card (or motherboard).  Also go into your audio mixer and 
> >>check the volume of the CD audio inputs.
> > 
> > 
> > I assume that since I was able to play wave files from a data CD that my
> > cable is properly installed. Am I wrong? 
> 
> Yes.
> 
> > Is .wav data sent digitally As
> > a file over the EIDE ribbon cable or does the drive firmware decode it
> > and send it along over the analog 4-pin sound cable? I just do not know.
> 
> It will be sent digitally over the IDE cable.  The Audio cable (can be 
> digital or analog) is only used when playing CD-Audio discs.
> 
> > And since DVDs work (video and sound), I have to ask, "does analog sound
> > go over the analog cable or digitally over the EIDE cable?" If the
> > former, the cable must be OK.
> 
> I believe that DVD does not use the Audio cable.
> 
> If you have XMMS installed, go to Options -> Preferences (Ctrl-P). 
> Select "CD Audio Player" and click Configure.  Now select "Digital audio 
> extraction" under Play mode.  This should allow you to play audio CDs 
> without the Audio cable.


Yes!!!! It worked. It took a while downloading (56k modem) the xmms
files, but it was worth it. I will still make a stab at replacing the
analog cable (I have an old working one with the right plugs), but it is
no longer important. BTW, I've had previous distributions that had xmms
installed, but they all used the fancy skins that hid the functionality
of the product. I guess it is like real life. Glitz too often wins over
grit -- in this case eye candy destroys an effective user interface.

Thanks for the winning hint.

-- Pete