[Alsa-user] Multiple audio stream record?

[Trevor Boicey]

I am looking at setting up a box that can record four video/audio streams at one time (using mp1e). The recording is low quality, both in audio and video, so processing and bandwith is not a big deal.

The video doesn't seem to be a problem, I've put a few bttv video cards in the box and I can do a few streams at once with lots of CPU cycles left over. (1.8Ghz P4, 90%++ CPU idle)

Audio is the problem right now, although probably an easy one. The current audio is a cheap onboard card running with the snd-intel8x0 driver. Works fine as a typical soundcard.

While the mixer can mix different audio from each card, I can only read one audio stream at once, if I start two m1pe processes each trying to read audio, one blocks until the other is finished.

I guess this is typical for sound cards, they can only record from one mixer channel at a time?

Question...

...are there any sound cards that can read more than one stream at a time, ie: One copy of mp1e can open /dev/dsp0 for the CD input, another copy can open /dev/dsp1 and record the line input, etc, etc? Even if they were in mono....

I guess I can just slap in four cheap sound cards, but this machine only has 3 PCI slots total, and it's a rack mount industrial machine so swapping out the motherboard is not an easy option.

Thanks for any insight.

--
Trevor Boicey, P. Eng.
Ottawa, Canada, [EMAIL PROTECTED]
ICQ #17432933 http://www.brit.ca/~tboicey/
"Wow, these cars are made of horses!" - Johnny Bravo



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