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Diffstat (limited to 'Documentation/sound/alsa/MIXART.txt')
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diff --git a/Documentation/sound/alsa/MIXART.txt b/Documentation/sound/alsa/MIXART.txt new file mode 100644 index 000000000000..5cb970612870 --- /dev/null +++ b/Documentation/sound/alsa/MIXART.txt @@ -0,0 +1,100 @@ + Alsa driver for Digigram miXart8 and miXart8AES/EBU soundcards + Digigram <alsa@digigram.com> + + +GENERAL +======= + +The miXart8 is a multichannel audio processing and mixing soundcard +that has 4 stereo audio inputs and 4 stereo audio outputs. +The miXart8AES/EBU is the same with a add-on card that offers further +4 digital stereo audio inputs and outputs. +Furthermore the add-on card offers external clock synchronisation +(AES/EBU, Word Clock, Time Code and Video Synchro) + +The mainboard has a PowerPC that offers onboard mpeg encoding and +decoding, samplerate conversions and various effects. + +The driver don't work properly at all until the certain firmwares +are loaded, i.e. no PCM nor mixer devices will appear. +Use the mixartloader that can be found in the alsa-tools package. + + +VERSION 0.1.0 +============= + +One miXart8 board will be represented as 4 alsa cards, each with 1 +stereo analog capture 'pcm0c' and 1 stereo analog playback 'pcm0p' device. +With a miXart8AES/EBU there is in addition 1 stereo digital input +'pcm1c' and 1 stereo digital output 'pcm1p' per card. + +Formats +------- +U8, S16_LE, S16_BE, S24_3LE, S24_3BE, FLOAT_LE, FLOAT_BE +Sample rates : 8000 - 48000 Hz continously + +Playback +-------- +For instance the playback devices are configured to have max. 4 +substreams performing hardware mixing. This could be changed to a +maximum of 24 substreams if wished. +Mono files will be played on the left and right channel. Each channel +can be muted for each stream to use 8 analog/digital outputs seperately. + +Capture +------- +There is one substream per capture device. For instance only stereo +formats are supported. + +Mixer +----- +<Master> and <Master Capture> : analog volume control of playback and capture PCM. +<PCM 0-3> and <PCM Capture> : digital volume control of each analog substream. +<AES 0-3> and <AES Capture> : digital volume control of each AES/EBU substream. +<Monitoring> : Loopback from 'pcm0c' to 'pcm0p' with digital volume +and mute control. + +Rem : for best audio quality try to keep a 0 attenuation on the PCM +and AES volume controls which is set by 219 in the range from 0 to 255 +(about 86% with alsamixer) + + +NOT YET IMPLEMENTED +=================== + +- external clock support (AES/EBU, Word Clock, Time Code, Video Sync) +- MPEG audio formats +- mono record +- on-board effects and samplerate conversions +- linked streams + + +FIRMWARE +======== + +[As of 2.6.11, the firmware can be loaded automatically with hotplug + when CONFIG_FW_LOADER is set. The mixartloader is necessary only + for older versions or when you build the driver into kernel.] + +For loading the firmware automatically after the module is loaded, use +the post-install command. For example, add the following entry to +/etc/modprobe.conf for miXart driver: + + install snd-mixart /sbin/modprobe --first-time -i snd-mixart && \ + /usr/bin/mixartloader +(for 2.2/2.4 kernels, add "post-install snd-mixart /usr/bin/vxloader" to + /etc/modules.conf, instead.) + +The firmware binaries are installed on /usr/share/alsa/firmware +(or /usr/local/share/alsa/firmware, depending to the prefix option of +configure). There will be a miXart.conf file, which define the dsp image +files. + +The firmware files are copyright by Digigram SA + + +COPYRIGHT +========= + +Copyright (c) 2003 Digigram SA <alsa@digigram.com> +Distributalbe under GPL. |