16.1 Synopsis

FreeBSD supports a wide variety of sound cards, allowing you to enjoy high fidelity output from your computer. This includes the ability to record and playback audio in the MPEG Audio Layer 3 (MP3), WAV, and Ogg Vorbis formats as well as many other formats. The FreeBSD Ports Collection also contains applications allowing you to edit your recorded audio, add sound effects, and control attached MIDI devices.

With some willingness to experiment, FreeBSD can support playback of video files and DVD's. The number of applications to encode, convert, and playback various video media is more limited than the number of sound applications. For example as of this writing, there is no good re-encoding application in the FreeBSD Ports Collection, which could be use to convert between formats, as there is with audio/sox. However, the software landscape in this area is changing rapidly.

This chapter will describe the necessary steps to configure your sound card. The configuration and installation of XFree86™ (Chapter 5) has already taken care of the hardware issues for your video card, though there may be some tweaks to apply for better playback.

After reading this chapter, you will know:

• How to configure your system so that your sound card is recognized.

• Methods to test that your card is working using sample applications.

• How to troubleshoot your sound setup.

• How to playback and encode MP3s and other audio.

• How video is supported by XFree86.

• Some video player/encoder ports which give good results.

• How to playback DVD's, .mpg and .avi files.

• How to rip CD and DVD information into files.

Before reading this chapter, you should:

• Know how to configure and install a new kernel (Chapter 9).

For the video sections, it is assumed that XFree86 4.X (x11/XFree86-4) has been installed. XFree86 3.X may work, but it has not been tested with what is described in this chapter. If you find that something described here does work with XFree86 3.X please let us know.