1==============================================================
2Alsa driver for Digigram miXart8 and miXart8AES/EBU soundcards
3==============================================================
4
5Digigram <alsa@digigram.com>
6
7
8GENERAL
9=======
10
11The miXart8 is a multichannel audio processing and mixing soundcard
12that has 4 stereo audio inputs and 4 stereo audio outputs.
13The miXart8AES/EBU is the same with a add-on card that offers further
144 digital stereo audio inputs and outputs.
15Furthermore the add-on card offers external clock synchronisation
16(AES/EBU, Word Clock, Time Code and Video Synchro)
17
18The mainboard has a PowerPC that offers onboard mpeg encoding and
19decoding, samplerate conversions and various effects.
20
21The driver don't work properly at all until the certain firmwares
22are loaded, i.e. no PCM nor mixer devices will appear.
23Use the mixartloader that can be found in the alsa-tools package.
24
25
26VERSION 0.1.0
27=============
28
29One miXart8 board will be represented as 4 alsa cards, each with 1
30stereo analog capture 'pcm0c' and 1 stereo analog playback 'pcm0p' device.
31With a miXart8AES/EBU there is in addition 1 stereo digital input
32'pcm1c' and 1 stereo digital output 'pcm1p' per card.
33
34Formats
35-------
36U8, S16_LE, S16_BE, S24_3LE, S24_3BE, FLOAT_LE, FLOAT_BE
37Sample rates : 8000 - 48000 Hz continuously
38
39Playback
40--------
41For instance the playback devices are configured to have max. 4
42substreams performing hardware mixing. This could be changed to a
43maximum of 24 substreams if wished.
44Mono files will be played on the left and right channel. Each channel
45can be muted for each stream to use 8 analog/digital outputs separately.
46
47Capture
48-------
49There is one substream per capture device. For instance only stereo
50formats are supported.
51
52Mixer
53-----
54<Master> and <Master Capture>
55	analog volume control of playback and capture PCM.
56<PCM 0-3> and <PCM Capture>
57	digital volume control of each analog substream.
58<AES 0-3> and <AES Capture>
59	digital volume control of each AES/EBU substream.
60<Monitoring>
61	Loopback from 'pcm0c' to 'pcm0p' with digital volume
62	and mute control.
63
64Rem : for best audio quality try to keep a 0 attenuation on the PCM
65and AES volume controls which is set by 219 in the range from 0 to 255
66(about 86% with alsamixer)
67
68
69NOT YET IMPLEMENTED
70===================
71
72- external clock support (AES/EBU, Word Clock, Time Code, Video Sync)
73- MPEG audio formats
74- mono record
75- on-board effects and samplerate conversions
76- linked streams
77
78
79FIRMWARE
80========
81
82[As of 2.6.11, the firmware can be loaded automatically with hotplug
83 when CONFIG_FW_LOADER is set.  The mixartloader is necessary only
84 for older versions or when you build the driver into kernel.]
85
86For loading the firmware automatically after the module is loaded, use a
87install command.  For example, add the following entry to
88/etc/modprobe.d/mixart.conf for miXart driver:
89::
90
91	install snd-mixart /sbin/modprobe --first-time -i snd-mixart && \
92			   /usr/bin/mixartloader
93
94
95(for 2.2/2.4 kernels, add "post-install snd-mixart /usr/bin/vxloader" to
96/etc/modules.conf, instead.)
97
98The firmware binaries are installed on /usr/share/alsa/firmware
99(or /usr/local/share/alsa/firmware, depending to the prefix option of
100configure).  There will be a miXart.conf file, which define the dsp image
101files.
102
103The firmware files are copyright by Digigram SA
104
105
106COPYRIGHT
107=========
108
109Copyright (c) 2003 Digigram SA <alsa@digigram.com>
110Distributable under GPL.
111