Record what you hear

[Ken_Dearden]

I have a Pavillion DV8-1250EA 4 GB RAM 2x320 GB Discs which has an IDT HD Audio device and uses the Windows 7 64-bit operating system.

I want to knwo how to record audio internally (e.g. audio played from the Internet).

I am able to do this on my desktop which has a Soundblaster Audigy 2 ZS Platinum Pro card and runs Windows XP Professional 32-bit by recording "What You Hear".

It seems just a little bit of an oversight to have omitted this functionality on such a powerful and feature-packed system designed for multi-media. 

[martyct]

I have used this. If it's coming out of the speakers or headphone you can record it . The IDT was listed as an input device.

http://audacity.sourceforge.net/

[Ken_Dearden]

I do run Audacity and I have tried to use this to record "What You Hear" on the HP Laptop. The only recording device shown in Audacity is Master. If I try to use this to record, it only picks up inputs from the inbuilt microphone and the externl microphone, if attached. Any sound coming out of the speakers is picked up by the inbuilt microphone and can be recorded in this way but that is, obviously, not satisfactory.

Another method would be to cable the earphone output to the external microphone input and disable or mute the built-in microphone. Again, this is hardly satisfactory.

I would have expected the audio detected internally to be available for recording, which it is not because I do not believe the IDT HD drivers present it.

In desperation, I have contacted IDT directly.

This is the sort of thing I have taken for granted, having had an excellent sound system on my desktop for years. It seems that Soundblaster takes some beating, both in terms of quality and technology. Perhaps HP would do well to consider this.

[martyct]

When I open Audicity there is a pull down menu next to the Mic symbol. One of the items is "stereo mix IDT high def....etc". When I select that, and say I put in a DVD, I can record the audio from the DVD as long as the speakers/headphones are not muted. The volume control will effect the input gain of the audicity record. This has worked for me.

Good luck.

[Ken_Dearden]

Thank you for your feedback.

I have set Stereo Mix as the default recording device in the IDT Audio control panel. Audacity still only shows Master in the recording device list by the microphone icon.

Under Edit, Preferences, I have selected Stereo Mix as the default recording device in Audacity.

When I try to record, Audacity gives me the error message "Error while opening sound device. Please check the input device settings and the project sample rate."

I've tried everything I can think of and still can't get Audacity to use any recording device other than Master. The actual input device is selected using the IDT Audio control panel and it doesn't work if Stereo mix is selected. it only works for the microphones. Weird, I call it.

[Ken_Dearden]

Right, thanks to feedback to my original posting and information gleaned from other forums, I've solved the problem. Not that the technical information on the particular equipment is much help.

First, it seems that the IDT HD Audio Codec can only recognise two input devices at a time, so faced with a buit-in microphone, an external microphone and a stereo mix, guess which one is unavailable in the list of sound Recording Devices.

Disabling the external microphone makes the Stereo Mix available. Setting this in the IDT console as the default recording device makes it available to Audacity. If you don't disable the Input Monitor to Listen to this device, in the IDT console you do get feedback.

I am now able to record from the Internet. What a complicated mechanism for such a simple operation.

[martyct]

This is probably no help but if I open the speaker (lower right), then mixer, I get device column and applications column. Applications are sound system. Under device I get a pull down and- speakers and dual headphones- are selected. When I open audicity it appears in a new applications column, ganged to the faders. It seems audicity found my sound board because I did not enter it. My download was last week.

Good luck.

[martyct]

Missed your reply. Glad it's solved.