Wolfson Audio Capture With DarkIce, How?

Hi Leigh!

Look for channel = 1 in the configuration file. The Wolfson card won't allow anything other than 2 channels.

This is my darkice.cfg, which works splendidly, streaming mp3: (server name and password have been changed to protect the guilty...)

[general]
duration = 0 # duration of encoding, in seconds. 0 means forever
bufferSecs = 5 # size of internal slip buffer, in seconds
reconnect = yes # reconnect to the server(s) if disconnected

# this section describes the audio input that will be streamed
[input]
device = hw:0,0 # ALSA device
sampleRate = 44100 # sample rate in Hz. try 11025, 22050 or 44100
bitsPerSample = 16 # bits per sample. try 16
channel = 2 # channels. 1 = mono, 2 = stereo

# this section describes a streaming connection to an IceCast2 server
[icecast2-0]
format = mp3 # format of the stream: MP3
bitrateMode = cbr # constant bit rate
bitrate = 256 # bitrate of the stream sent to the server
quality = 0.8
server = www.example.local # host name of the server
port = 8000 # port of the IceCast2 server, usually 8000
password = xxxxxx # source password to the IceCast2 server
mountPoint = liveob # mount point of this stream on the IceCast2 server
sampleRate = 44100
channel = 2 # Stereo
name = OB case # name of the stream
description = Live from the field # description of the stream
url = http://www.example.com/liveob # URL related to the stream
genre = Speech # genre of the stream
public = no # advertise this stream?
#localDumpFile = dump.ogg # local dump file

--

Ragnar

Ragnar,

I am having trouble setting the soundcard up with Darkice as well.

This is the error that I recieve.

Using config file: /etc/darkice.cfg

Using ALSA DSP input device: hw:0,0

Using POSIX real-time scheduling, priority 98

DarkIce: AlsaDspSource.cpp:195: can't set hardware parameters [0]

That one is not as clear-cut...

I think the card isn't initialized properly.

Have you run one of the Record_from... scripts first?

Can you post your darkice.cfg? (change passwords first)

Also try running

  darkice -v9

to produce more verbose messages and post those.

--

Ragnar

Ragnar,

Thanks for replying,

Yes, I ran script record from line in.

Also,

pi@raspberrypi ~ $ sudo darkice -v9

DarkIce 1.0 live audio streamer, http://code.google.com/p/darkice/

Copyright (c) 2000-2007, Tyrell Hungary, http://tyrell.hu/

Copyright (c) 2008-2010, Akos Maroy and Rafael Diniz

This is free software, and you are welcome to redistribute it

under the terms of The GNU General Public License version 3 or

any later version.

Using config file: /etc/darkice.cfg

30-Mar-2014 18:19:32 Using ALSA DSP input device: hw:0,0

30-Mar-2014 18:19:32 encoding

30-Mar-2014 18:19:32 scheduler high priority 99

30-Mar-2014 18:19:32 Using POSIX real-time scheduling, priority 98

DarkIce: AlsaDspSource.cpp:195: can't set hardware parameters [0]

Im not sure how to post Darkice .cfg, but here goes:

# sample DarkIce configuration file, edit for your needs before using

# see the darkice.cfg man page for details

# this section describes general aspects of the live streaming session

[general]

duration        = 0         # duration of encoding, in seconds. 0 means forever

bufferSecs      = 5         # size of internal slip buffer, in seconds

reconnect       = yes       # reconnect to the server(s) if disconnected

# this section describes the audio input that will be streamed

[input]

device          = hw:0,0    # ALSA device

sampleRate      = 22050     # sample rate in Hz. try 11025, 22050 or 44100

bitsPerSample   = 16        # bits per sample. try 16

channel         = 2         # channels. 1 = mono, 2 = stereo

# this section describes a streaming connection to an IceCast2 server

# there may be up to 8 of these sections, named [icecast2-0] ... [icecast2-7]

# these can be mixed with [icecast-x] and [shoutcast-x] sections

[icecast2-0]

bitrateMode     = abr       # average bit rate

format          = mp3       # format of the stream: MP3

bitrate         = 96        # bitrate of the stream sent to the server

server          = @localhost

                            # host name of the server

port            = 8000      # port of the IceCast2 server, usually 8000

password        = test    # source password to the IceCast2 server

mountPoint      = sample96  # mount point of this stream on the IceCast2 server

name            = DarkIce trial

                            # name of the stream

description     = This is only a trial

                            # description of the stream

url             = @localhost

                            # URL related to the stream

genre           = my own    # genre of the stream

public          = yes       # advertise this stream?

localDumpFile    = dump.ogg  # local dump file

# this section describes a streaming connection to an IceCast server

# there may be up to 8 of these sections, named [icecast-0] ... [icecast-7]

# these can be mixed with [icecast2-x] and [shoutcast-x] sections

[icecast-0]

bitrateMode     = cbr       # constant bit rate

bitrate         = 96        # bitrate of the mp3 stream sent to the server

format          = mp3       # format of the stream: mp3

quality         = 0.8       # encoding quality

server          = @localhost

                            # host name of the server

port            = 8000      # port of the IceCast server, usually 8000

password        = test    # source password to the IceCast server

mountPoint      = sample96  # mount point of this stream on the IceCast server

name            = DarkIce trial

                            # name of the stream

description     = This is only a trial

                            # description of the stream

url             = @localhost

                            # URL related to the stream

genre           = my own    # genre of the stream

public          = yes       # advertise this stream?

# this section describes a streaming connection to a ShoutCast server

# there may be up to 8 of these sections, named [shoutcast-0] ... [shoutcast-7]

# these can be mixed with [icecast-x] and [icecast2-x] sections

[shoutcast-0]

bitrateMode     = vbr       # variable bit rate mode

quality         = 0.5       # encoding quality

server          = @localhost

                            # host name of the server

port            = 8001      # source port of the ShoutCast server, usually 8001

password        = test    # source password to the ShoutCast server

name            = DarkIce trial

                            # name of the stream

url             = @localhost

                            # URL related to the stream

genre           = my own    # genre of the stream

public          = yes       # advertise this stream?

irc             = irc.yourserver.com

                            # IRC info related to the stream

aim             = aim here  # AIM info related to the stream

icq             = I see you too

                            # ICQ info related to the stream

It's the sampling rate in the [input] section - 22050.

There is a bug in the drivers, no support for rates below 32000 Re: PJSIP/PJSUA with Wolfson audio card

Usable sample rates are 32000, 44100, 48000, 88200, 96000, 176400 and 192000.

You have a lot of @localhost in there. That won't work, lose the @

Beware of the localDumpFile = dump.ogg

That will save everything you stream to a file and will fill your card pronto.

If you look at my config a couple of posts above you'll notice I've commented it out with a hash mark.

And are you really trying to stream to an Icecast2 server [icecast2-0], an Icecast1 server [icecast-0] and a Shoutcast server [shoutcast-0] at the same time?

I'm streaming to an Icecast2 server, so I've just removed the  [icecast-0] and  [shoutcast-0] sections entirely

--

Ragnar.

Ragnar,

Thank you very much, works fine now.

I just have to raise the volume some and I will be good to go.

Thanks again!!

Hello all

We have been using Pi's for streaming as part of a project to develop a live open microphone network from wild places.

We have had pretty good results using USB soundcards, with some limitations.

Now we are trying the Wolfson audio card.

We have successfully installed the card following very useful instructions here - thank you.

Now we have issues which we have also run into previously and always ended up working around rather than fully understanding or dealing with:

Using the darkice.cfg configuration used successfully by Ragnar above, we get bursts of apparently good quality audio for about 4 second periods, followed by pops and dropouts. The log reports repeated Buffer overruns, which we assume are associated with the dropouts.

We have found various inconclusive threads on this issue, but none that give us a solution or a clear understanding of the problem.

We'd be grateful for your advice.

Thanks

Grant

following this up:

we have now duplicated Ragnar's settings in the darkice.cfg and done a clean install based on Ragnar's disk image - thank you!

we have also set up a new icecast server and tried streaming to that locally

however, we have the same issues: audio dropouts and darkice reports: Buffer overrun!

Does anybody know what Buffer overrun! is telling us, or how we can address it?

Thank you

Best wishes

Grant

following this up:

we have now duplicated Ragnar's settings in the darkice.cfg and done a clean install based on Ragnar's disk image - thank you!

we have also set up a new icecast server and tried streaming to that locally

however, we have the same issues: audio dropouts and darkice reports: Buffer overrun!

Does anybody know what Buffer overrun! is telling us, or how we can address it?

Thank you

Best wishes

Grant

Buffer overrun is when sound samples are coming in faster than Darkice can get them out.

Something is slowing Darkice down. Do you have any other CPU-hungry processes running?

--

Ragnar

Hi Ragnar

Thanks very much for your reply.

We don't think anything else significant is running.

I think top confirms this:

contentimage_176801.tiff

that image doesn't work

Here's the  top  report as text, with the columns not very well aligned.

bw

grant

top - 12:30:27 up 21:41,  2 users,  load average: 5.40, 5.27, 3.91

Tasks:  89 total,   1 running,  88 sleeping,   0 stopped,   0 zombie

%Cpu(s): 91.6 us,  1.0 sy,  0.0 ni,  7.4 id,  0.0 wa,  0.0 hi,  0.0 si,  0.0 st

KiB Mem:    447488 total,   182580 used,   264908 free,    18892 buffers

KiB Swap:   102396 total,        0 used,   102396 free,   128256 cached

  PID USER      PR  NI  VIRT  RES  SHR S  %CPU %MEM    TIME+  COMMAND           

3063 root     -99   0 17424 2960 2196 S  86.5  0.7  17:07.04 darkice           

1951 root      20   0 29032 1804 1120 S   1.6  0.4   0:18.67 rsyslogd          

3096 pi        20   0  4668 1440 1028 R   1.3  0.3   0:09.78 top               

3067 root      20   0     0    0    0 S   0.3  0.0   0:00.33 kworker/u2:5      

3075 root      20   0     0    0    0 S   0.3  0.0   0:00.88 kworker/u2:13     

3081 pi        20   0  9464 1596  980 S   0.3  0.4   0:02.17 sshd              

    1 root      20   0  2144  712  608 S   0.0  0.2   0:06.50 init              

    2 root      20   0     0    0    0 S   0.0  0.0   0:00.02 kthreadd          

    3 root      20   0     0    0    0 S   0.0  0.0   0:02.02 ksoftirqd/0       

    5 root       0 -20     0    0    0 S   0.0  0.0   0:00.00 kworker/0:0H      

    7 root      20   0     0    0    0 S   0.0  0.0   0:02.34 rcu_preempt       

    8 root      20   0     0    0    0 S   0.0  0.0   0:00.00 rcu_bh            

    9 root      20   0     0    0    0 S   0.0  0.0   0:00.00 rcu_sched         

   10 root       0 -20     0    0    0 S   0.0  0.0   0:00.00 khelper           

   11 root      20   0     0    0    0 S   0.0  0.0   0:00.00 kdevtmpfs         

   12 root       0 -20     0    0    0 S   0.0  0.0   0:00.00 netns             

   13 root      20   0     0    0    0 S   0.0  0.0   0:01.34 kworker/0:1       

   14 root       0 -20     0    0    0 S   0.0  0.0   0:00.00 writeback         

   15 root       0 -20     0    0    0 S   0.0  0.0   0:00.00 bioset            

   16 root       0 -20     0    0    0 S   0.0  0.0   0:00.00 kblockd           

   17 root      20   0     0    0    0 S   0.0  0.0   0:00.26 khubd             

   18 root       0 -20     0    0    0 S   0.0  0.0   0:00.00 rpciod            

   19 root      20   0     0    0    0 S   0.0  0.0   0:00.04 khungtaskd        

   20 root      20   0     0    0    0 S   0.0  0.0   0:00.00 kswapd0           

   21 root      20   0     0    0    0 S   0.0  0.0   0:00.00 fsnotify_mark     

   22 root       0 -20     0    0    0 S   0.0  0.0   0:00.00 nfsiod            

   23 root       0 -20     0    0    0 S   0.0  0.0   0:00.00 crypto            

   29 root       0 -20     0    0    0 S   0.0  0.0   0:00.00 kthrotld          

   30 root       1 -19     0    0    0 S   0.0  0.0   0:00.00 VCHIQ-0           

   31 root       1 -19     0    0    0 S   0.0  0.0   0:00.00 VCHIQr-0          

   32 root       0 -20     0    0    0 S   0.0  0.0   0:00.00 VCHIQs-0          

   33 root       0 -20     0    0    0 S   0.0  0.0   0:00.00 iscsi_eh          

Hmm... your darkice process is eating 86.5% CPU. That is too much.

Mine never go over 50%. In fact, I can run two darkices simultaneously on one Pi.

Is your Icecast server up to par? The only time I get buffer overruns is when I stress the server on which my Icecast is running or if I throttle the network between my Darkice and Iceast servers.

--

Ragnar

Hi Ragnar

Thanks for sticking with this thread - we're grateful for your advice.

I agree: the CPU usage is about twice what we could expect. We also wondered if it could be the icecast server, although other users have not reported problems there. So we set up an alternative icecast server on a laptop on the local network, and again experienced the same issues: high CPU usage, Pi becoming less responsive, repeated Buffer overruns. We tested over both WiFi and ethernet. We don't think the network is the issue.

We tested another setup whereby an icecast2 server is installed on the Pi, and darkice streams to this local Icecast2 server, which in turn connects to a remoter server in Relay mode. This overcomes the Buffer overrun problem and gives very good audio but seems unnecessarily intricate and introduces other obstacles.

We will now try a clean re install of latest Raspbian and re compile Darkice, removing all additional tweaks etc, on the principle that darkice can do what it is designed to do, since you seem to be streaming consistently excellent sampleRates, etc.

We'll report back here.

If you have any additional suggestions, please let us know.

Thanks again

bw

grant

Hi Ragnar and all

Further to our experiences with darkice streaming and buffer overruns:

We did a complete re install of everything from scratch: operating system, darkice and support for the Wolfson card. We have exactly the same issue as before: darkice taking over 80% of CPU, causing buffer overruns and crashes. Brief moments of good audio with dropouts every few seconds. We duplicated Ragnar's darkice.cfg settings to be sure we hadn't picked up something silly.

Now wondering how to proceed. Any thoughts on why darkice could be  behaving like this, or how to unravel it would be great.

Thank you

bw

grant

I have set up another RPi for streaming. I cloned one that has always worked perfectly, i.e. the two are identical.

Except for one thing; the USB stick I put the root file system on is a different model.

And wouldn't you know, the new one suffered stuttering audio with frequent drop-outs and buffer overruns!

I switched the USB stick for another, newer model and all problems went away.

Now it happily streams two 128 kbps mp3 streams, to an external Icecast2 server and another one it runs itself. CPU% hovers around 70-75.

Something with the USB stick I originally used presumably wasn't fast enough.

Maybe you have hit something similar. Try another type of SD card?

--

Ragnar

I just set up a Darkice system using OSS emulation to function as a public streaming source for one endpoint in a proxied IP audio stream to an FM transmitter for a community radio station. It works quite well. Here's the rundown. This thread already has links to how to custom compile darkice with mp3 support, if that's what you want. I'm only using vorbis.

Install OSS emulation

Install Darkice from default repository mirror

apt-get install darkice

Set up vorbis source stream as described in this document

install mplayer

apt-get install mplayer

copy stream output from headphone out to line in so /dev/dsp gets a signal

amixer cset name="AIF1TX1 Input 1" "AIF1RX1"

amixer cset name="AIF1TX2 Input 1" "AIF1RX2"

amixer cset name="Master" 227

amixer cset name="HPOUT1 Digital Volume" 185

play stream URL with mplayer

start darkice as root for realtime priority

that should do it, though you might have to run the script to first enable playback via headphones and record via line in. This is the script that comes with the custom kernel tarball.