Re: [ecasound] Alsa input sample rate puzzle

Hi,

On Tue, 17 Jun 2008, Andrew Lees wrote:

> trying ecasound. I have a slight puzzle though. I am using an Audigy
> NX external USB card, and other recording software (arecord, audacity,
> for example) seem to think that the card supports an input side sample
> rate of 48000 s/s, but not 44100, while ecasound thinks it supports a
> 44100 rate but not 48000. Both camps are set in their ways, and will
[...]
> ecasound -f:s24_le,2,44100 -i:alsahw,1,0 -t:1800 -ge:5,0.02 -B:nonrt -o
> side2-2.wav (currently lockup are making me wary about rt modes)
>
> whereas ecasound -f:s24_le,2,48000 -i:alsahw,1,0 ... will not work.

that would suggest the card natively supports only 44100. Arecord should
behave similarly if you pass it:

arecord -D hw:1,0 ...

If you use the ALSA plugin layer (arecord without extra options, or
ecasound with "-i:plughw:1,0"), alsa-lib will resample the audio for you.
But usually (and especially when recording) it's better to record in the
native sample rate supported by HW (so 44100 in this case).

> Also arecord requires a -f S24_3LE option rather than a -f S24_LE option
> (which it says is not supported), while ecasound will not work with a
> -f:s24_3le, option - all very curious.

Yes, ecasound does not recognize '-f:s24_3le'. This is quite complicated
in fact... if you use the ALSA plug layer (-i:plughw:1,0 or arecord -D
plughw:1,0), alsa-lib will make the conversion for you, but otherwise you
need to understand what is going on. Basicly ALSA's S24_3LE is same as
ecasound's '-f:s24_le'. ALSA's S24_LE is in fact a 32bit sample, with
least-significant byte zeroed (so 24bit of information, stored in 32bits).
The latter one is much more common. In ecasound, you can use '-f:s32_le'
for both ALSA types S24_LE and S32_LE (because ecasound doesn't care
whether the lower bits are zeroed out or have valid info).

--
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Check out the new SourceForge.net Marketplace.
It's the best place to buy or sell services for
just about anything Open Source.
http://sourceforge.net/services/buy/index.php
_______________________________________________
Ecasound-list mailing list
Ecasound-list@email-addr-hidden
https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/ecasound-list