# Need Help Recording Video Sound

## gtroland

Hi Everyone,

I'm trying to record video with sound and I'm having a problem.  Video records just fine, but I don't seem to be able to record the sound.

I'm sure that both my video capture card (Osprey-100, BT848, no onboard sound) is working fine because I have no problem watching and capturing video through it.  I'm also sure that my sound (MB Via8233, ALSA driver) is working fine because I have no trouble playing sounds through it.  I can watch and listen to video by connecting the video out line of my VCR to the Osprey card and the VCR sound out to the line in jack on my motherboard.  Video records and plays back just fine, except that it is dead silent.  I just can't get the darn sound to record.

I have tried recording with Avicap (avifile utility), Lavrec (MJPEG-Tools utility) and Xawtv.  In each case messages indicate that sound is being recorded, but when I play back there is no sound.  I have tried Aviplay, Lavplay, aKtion! and Xmovie for playback.  In each case the video plays fine, except that it is dead silent.  I have tried setting levels with amixer, alsamixer and alsamixergui.  No luck.  Each of these is clearly controlling sound -- I can change levels and activate/deactivate various channels.

My best guess is that I'm not setting up my devices properly.  Here's what my various settings look like (edited for clarity):

****/etc/modules.d/alsa

# ALSA portion

alias char-major-116 snd

# OSS/Free portion

alias char-major-14 soundcore

##  ALSA portion

alias snd-card-0 snd-via8233

## alias snd-card-1 snd-ens1371

##  OSS/Free portion

alias sound-slot-0 snd-card-0

## alias sound-slot-1 snd-card-1

##

# OSS/Free portion - card #1

alias sound-service-0-0 snd-mixer-oss

alias sound-service-0-1 snd-seq-oss

alias sound-service-0-3 snd-pcm-oss

alias sound-service-0-8 snd-seq-oss

alias sound-service-0-12 snd-pcm-oss

alias /dev/mixer snd-mixer-oss

alias /dev/dsp snd-pcm-oss

alias /dev/midi snd-seq-oss

**** /etc/devfsd.conf (ALSA section)

# ALSA/OSS stuff

# Comment/change these if you want to change the permissions on

# the audio devices

LOOKUP          snd          MODLOAD ACTION snd

LOOKUP          dsp          MODLOAD

LOOKUP          mixer        MODLOAD

LOOKUP          midi         MODLOAD

REGISTER        sound/.*     PERMISSIONS root.audio 660

REGISTER        snd/.*       PERMISSIONS root.audio 660

**** /etc/modules.autoload

snd-via8233

snd-pcm-oss

Any ideas what I missed?

Thanks,

- GTR -

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## mksoft

Can you hear sound from other programs  :Question:  If you're running from kde, try running the program with artsdsp.

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## gtroland

Thanks for the reply mksoft.

As noted in my original message, sound seems to be working with everything else, I can even monitor sound (through headphones attached to "speaker" jack on motherboard) while I'm recording.

One program that does not work with sound is SimCity3000 which gives me the message: "open /dev/dsp: Device or resource busy."  Is it possible to redirect /dev/dsp to my ALSA devices?

I am running KDE (3.0.2), but I don't understand what you mean by "try running the program with artsdsp."  Could you expand on that a bit?

Thanks again for the response.

- GTR -

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## metalhedd

He means if you're running "vidrecord --somefreakyuptions thingsandstuff.mpg" or something like that. replace it with "artsdsp vidrecord --somefreakyuptions thingsandstuff.mpg"

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## gtroland

Thanks metalhedd.

Artsdsp did the trick for SimCity3K, BUT still no sound recording for video.  Situation is exactly the same with or without artsdsp: Video records, sound plays through headphones, capture software indicates that it is capturing, but no sound out on playback.  Just to be sure everything else is working OK, I check sound for the playback software (Xmovie, Aviplay and Lavplay) with previously recorded material.  Sound is there.

I can't help getting the feeling that that I'm not pointing to the right device while I'm recording.

Thanks again for the feedback.

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## metalhedd

I tried using audacity to record just audio once.. I couldn;t get it to work either.  I never tried very hard mind you...  :Smile: 

same symptoms though... it seems to be recording ok, and the mixer and everything is set to use the Microphone-In on my snd card, but nothing gets recorded. I posted about it a while back to no avail.

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## mksoft

Through what sound is channeled to the sound card  :Question:  Line-in maybe ?

If so, make sure line volume is set to max (in kmix) and that it is set as the recording source (the red led below "line" in kmix).

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## gtroland

Thanks mksoft.  That wasn't exactly the solution was, but you certainly pointed me in the right direction!  When I looked at my settings with kmix, I saw a gain control, set to zero, which doesn't show up in alsamixer or even alsamixergui.  When I took gain off of zero, I got my video sound recording.

This is what makes community support great.  It isn't dependant on someone having exactly the right answer.  Sometimes an educated guess, based on experience is good enough to illuminate the correct path to the solution.  Thanks to mksoft for getting me pointed in the right direction, and thanks to everyone else on these boards for sharing the benefit or you experience.  That's the way to make things work!

- GTR -

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## metalhedd

thanks for the info, I just noticed that slider... it should probably be placed next to the selected recording device and looks slightly different... maybe even horizontal. that would be one to submit at usability.kde.org..

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