Add pulseaudio output support

Hi TJ:

We tend to not pull in many patches that aren't present in at least -trunk
or -fixes into our packages so that they will resolve properly later when
upgrading to a new revision in case upstream didn't like the initial patch.
Once these land in upstream, we'll be able to pull those into our package
(and backport to -fixes as necessary too).

Poke upstream so they can land there first.

We'll keep this bug open to track the progress at least.

On Thu, Dec 25, 2008 at 02:44, TJ <email address hidden> wrote:

> Public bug reported:
>
> Binary package hint: mythtv
>
> The current (December 2008) mythbuntu packages do not directly support
> pulseaudio, despite it being the default sound server since Ubuntu 8.04.
>
> Patches have been developed and are found in the mythtv Trac:
>
> http://svn.mythtv.org/trac/ticket/5473
>
> For Home Theatre systems that contain multiple sound hardware output,
> and/or surround-sound services (7.1, 5.1, etc.) there are problems
> configuring the mythtv frontend audio volume control. In the default
> configuration with "ALSA:default" (and other ALSA variations) the sound
> is fed to pulseaudio by the alsa/pulseaudio plug-in.
>
> Unfortunately Mythtv mixer volume control doesn't 'know' about the
> surround-sound configuration in pulseaudio and will only control the
> Front Left/Right channels. Front Centre/LFE, Side Left/Right, Rear
> Left/Right remain at their system-set level.
>
> These pulseaudio patches allow mythtv to directly output audio to
> pulseaudio, and accept a pulseaudio server control string too.
>
> I've taken the mythtv Trac patches and ported them to the Ubuntu mythtv
> source and am making it available in my PPA.
>
> ** Affects: mythtv (Ubuntu)
> Importance: Undecided
> Status: New
>
> --
> Add pulseaudio output support
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/311328
> You received this bug notification because you are a member of MythTV
> Ubuntu Maintainers, which is subscribed to mythtv in ubuntu.
>

--
Mario Limonciello
<email address hidden>

On Thu, 2008-12-25 at 16:52 +0000, Mario Limonciello wrote:
>
> We tend to not pull in many patches that aren't present in at least -trunk
> or -fixes into our packages so that they will resolve properly later when
> upgrading to a new revision in case upstream didn't like the initial patch.
> Once these land in upstream, we'll be able to pull those into our package
> (and backport to -fixes as necessary too).
>
> Poke upstream so they can land there first.

That's the general idea. The existing patch against the development head
needed refactoring to make it compatible with 0.21+fixes. I'm applying
some polish and testing it now. It'll land in my PPA shortly and
hopefully some other Mythbuntu users can give it a try.

Once it is proved I'll push it upstream and see if we can get both the
HEAD and +fixes accepted.

It's especially useful with Hardy and Intrepid based on 0.21+fixes with
a theatre sound-surround system.

This is indeed something upstream plans to tackle, but it most certainly won't be in 0.21, and is VERY unlikely to be in (or backported to) 0.22.

0.23 should have stable pulseaudio support.

I've been running mythfrontend (0.22 from the mythbuntu trunk-0.22 ppa) with EXPERIMENTALLY_ALLOW_PULSE_AUDIO=1 for a while now and it's been working quite well.

The command for my gnome panel launcher is:
env EXPERIMENTALLY_ALLOW_PULSE_AUDIO=1 mythfrontend --service

This bug was fixed in the package mythtv - 0.23.0~trunk23567-0ubuntu1

---------------
mythtv (0.23.0~trunk23567-0ubuntu1) lucid; urgency=low

  * Bump builds to start with 0.23
  * debian/control:
    - Fix vcs-bzr
    - Update depends to include ttf-droid, ttf-liberation, and ttf-dejavu.
      (LP: #224114)
    - Drop quilt build-dep, it appears to be included w/ dh7
    - Bump standards version
  * Introduces stable pulseaudio support (In Theory! :)) (LP: #311328)
  * Print message to stdout for MythTV.pm (LP: #327406)
  * debian/patches:
    - Drop 16_hal_shutdown. No longer necessary after r23518.
  * Allow shutdowns when mythtv is running (LP: #174712)
    - Comes from upstream changeset r23455.
  * Mythbackend now supports the --user flag to drop permissions from
    upstream changeset r23521.
  * Use the upstart script from the upstream contrib directory instead.
    Now uses the --user flag to drop permissions. (LP: #445953)
  * Update 30_python26_transition for changes upstream.
  * mythtv-database.templates:
    - refer to the proper location for backups.
  * Switch to use the upstream backup scripts. (LP: #469792)
  * Helps with HDTV stuttering. (LP: #451394)
  * Drop old debian/myth-*.sh scripts since we now use dbus for shutdown
    and reboot etc.
  * Drop old debian/mythtv-backend.default. It's just available for upgrades.
  * Drop old debian/mythtv-backend.init initscript. We're only supporting
    upstart going forward with these builds.
  * Drop unnecessary patch, 02_settings_pro.dpatch
  * Drop unused patch, 23_video_device_symlinks.dpatch
  * Drop unused patch, 25_skiploop_option.dpatch
  * Convert packaging to dh7.
  * Convert packaging to source v3 (w/ quilt).
  * Add debian/README.source as a symlink to the quilt README.source
  * Convert all .files into .install.
  * Refresh patches as quilt format instead
  * Rewrite get-orig-source rules to parse the changelog for version info.
  * Drop any of the Top Secret Options build flags
  * Include a custom snippet for debian/rules mythtv packages in libmyth-dev.
  * Drop old, unused templates from debian/templates.
 -- Mario Limonciello <email address hidden> Tue, 16 Feb 2010 21:23:04 -0600

It seems to have failed to build mythtv with pulseaudio support. From the buildlog:

# Sound Output Support
PulseAudio support no
OSS support yes
ALSA support yes
JACK support yes
libfftw3 support no

It's because mythtv wants at least pulseaudio 0.9.7. From the configure script:
pkg-config --atleast-version=0.9.7 libpulse

However, the version of libpulse isn't defined in /usr/lib/pkgconfig/libpulse.pc, so the check fails.

Or, more accurately, the version is defined as UNKNOWN. I filed bug 523716 for the issue.