Bad audio problem and audio mpeg recording problem

I just got through figuring out two puzzles with my new PC and I want to
share the solution since it was anything but an intuitive situation (at
least for me). If I missed anything, let me know since I'm new at this.

My PC has AMD 2400, Gigabyte 74M400M, ATI AIW 9800 w/W2k and 256 ram.

Audio problem #1 was my MP3, DVD, and streaming audio sounded very metallic
with heavy echo. With audio # 2, I couldn't hear any sound when playing
back a TV show recorded with All in Wonder.

I read lots of newsgroup stuff and I stumbled into a control panel feature
called Sound Effects Manager where you adjust sounds to fit into different
environmental settings. Among the choices were generic, padded cell, room,
living room, stone room, auditorium, arena, cave, etc…. Mine was set to
"generic" and when I changed it to "room", the MP3 audio played normally.

I dove into more newsgroups to fix the audio playback issue with AIW 9800.
This stumped me because I watched TV with good audio that was not affected
by audio problem #1. The solution was that I wasn't "wired" to actually
record audio. I had seen all the plastic bags with mysterious cables that
came with the AIW card, put them on the shelf and forgot about them. I
read a post about someone using them and I found that I had to "line out"
my audio to my "line in" plug. There's a black cable with several leads
that I plugged into video out and I used the connected black mini-plug to
connect back into the "line in".

I hit play on a file I had made earlier but it didn't work. Then I tried
recording a brand new file and it worked. The key was to have the cables
in place and then record.

However, it sounded horrible. It didn't sound anything like the live audio
when I watched a show. Now, remember sound manager (audio problem #1)? I
went back and changed the "room" setting to "padded cell" and now it sounds
great.

Whew!

bg

How did you manage to get any audio at all without hooking up either the
internal or external outs from your AIW??


"bg" wrote in message
...
I just got through figuring out two puzzles with my new PC and I want to
share the solution since it was anything but an intuitive situation (at
least for me). If I missed anything, let me know since I'm new at this.

My PC has AMD 2400, Gigabyte 74M400M, ATI AIW 9800 w/W2k and 256 ram.

Audio problem #1 was my MP3, DVD, and streaming audio sounded very
metallic
with heavy echo. With audio # 2, I couldn't hear any sound when playing
back a TV show recorded with All in Wonder.

I read lots of newsgroup stuff and I stumbled into a control panel feature
called Sound Effects Manager where you adjust sounds to fit into different
environmental settings. Among the choices were generic, padded cell,
room,
living room, stone room, auditorium, arena, cave, etc.. Mine was set to
"generic" and when I changed it to "room", the MP3 audio played normally.

I dove into more newsgroups to fix the audio playback issue with AIW 9800.
This stumped me because I watched TV with good audio that was not affected
by audio problem #1. The solution was that I wasn't "wired" to actually
record audio. I had seen all the plastic bags with mysterious cables that
came with the AIW card, put them on the shelf and forgot about them. I
read a post about someone using them and I found that I had to "line out"
my audio to my "line in" plug. There's a black cable with several leads
that I plugged into video out and I used the connected black mini-plug to
connect back into the "line in".

I hit play on a file I had made earlier but it didn't work. Then I tried
recording a brand new file and it worked. The key was to have the cables
in place and then record.

However, it sounded horrible. It didn't sound anything like the live
audio
when I watched a show. Now, remember sound manager (audio problem #1)? I
went back and changed the "room" setting to "padded cell" and now it
sounds
great.

Whew!

bg