Sound Dialog: Recording Tab
A quick glance at the Recording tab of the Sound dialog shows that it is similar to the Playback tab the difference being in the devices listed. The green circle with the white check indicates the default device while the circled black down arrow indicates disabled devices.
The contest menus resulting from right clicking one of the devices listed in this view look and behave much like those of the Playback tab. The one shown here resulted from right clicking a disabled device.
Shown here is the context menu of a device that has been set as the default device.
The context menu of a device that is not set as the default. In the case of a microphone, as
depicted here, the menu item Configure Speech Recognition is added. This option opens the
Ease of Access > Speech Recognition Options window, which provides access to a number of
options from starting Speech Recognition to a tutorial on using the speech recognition tools.
This represents enough material to cover several web pages, which is why we are going to limit
coverage of this subject to this paragraph.
You may have noticed that the status of this device is "Currently unavailable". This changes
to "Working" when the sound card microphone input has been set as the default device. You may
also have noticed that some screen shots show Realtek AC97 audio devices and others show SB
X-Fi Xtreme Audio devices. They were made on the same machine but at different times. The point
is that the device status behavior is mostly likely due to the devices themselves rather than
the Operating System.
The screen that results from clicking the properties item of the right click menus is also similar in appearance and behavior to those found on the Playback tab view. Multi-tabbed and varying with the selected device. The General tab view shown here is exactly like those of the Playback tab and here to you will find this tab on the properties dialog for each device.
We have also seen the Levels tab in the Playback section. These level controls are a bit less complicated than those previously discussed. Notice the missing balance buttons?
Settings found on the Enhancements tab should be set according to the instructions that came with the particular device. In this case the properties screen is for an INport line level input. This device converts sound from analog sources such as an old LP album or cassette tape to digital sound the computer can use. The setup instructions for the INport called for disabling the features provided by the Enhancements tab view. Other devices may require or suggest different settings. We have recently noticed that other devices and programs disable these settings in the same manner. You should probably note any changes you make here then if something stops working correctly you can undo the setting change.
The tab labeled Custom can be found on the properties dialog of several devices. We have, as yet, not learned the exact function of this setting. At this point we can only guess that it may have something to do with Vista's Speech Recognition which monitors audio inputs.
The tab labeled Advanced is the same on the Recording tab as the Playback tab. It provides the ability to set the quality of sound when recording. The Exclusive mode check boxes provide editing applications with the amount of device control and priority needed to produce high quality recordings.
Microsoft, Microsoft Office, Windows, Windows XP and Windows Vista are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Microsoft Corporation in the United States and/or other countries. The names of actual companies and products mentioned herein may be the trademarks of their respective owners.
