© 2010 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved Mike Meyers’ CompTIA A+ ® Guide to Managing and Troubleshooting PCs Third Edition Multimedia Chapter 20

© 2010 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved Mike Meyers’ CompTIA A+ ® Guide to Managing and Troubleshooting PCs Third Edition Overview In this chapter, you will learn how to –Describe how to implement sound in a PC –Install and configure video capture hardware and software –Set up a PC to view television signals

© 2010 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved Mike Meyers’ CompTIA A+ ® Guide to Managing and Troubleshooting PCs Third Edition Sound-Capture Basics Four components for capturing and outputting sound –Sound card –Speakers –Microphone –Recording/Playback software

© 2010 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved Mike Meyers’ CompTIA A+ ® Guide to Managing and Troubleshooting PCs Third Edition Sound-Capture Basics (continued) Sampling = capturing sound –Sampling rate is measured in cycles per second (KHz) Low quality (11 KHz) to high quality (192 KHz) –Doesn’t capture every nanosecond of sound –Takes samples and extrapolates, or predicts, what the data is between samples Dotted line—can you connect the dots?

© 2010 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved Mike Meyers’ CompTIA A+ ® Guide to Managing and Troubleshooting PCs Third Edition Sampling = capturing sound –Bit depth—number of characteristics of a particular sound (for each sample) Amplitude (loudness) Frequency (tone) Timbre (qualities from different instruments) Sound-Capture Basics (continued)

© 2010 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved Mike Meyers’ CompTIA A+ ® Guide to Managing and Troubleshooting PCs Third Edition Sound-Capture Basics (continued) Sound waves are commonly sampled with either 8 or 16 bits per sample –8-bit stores 2 8 or 256 different characteristics –16-bit stores 2 16 or 65,536 different characteristics Tracks –Monaural—one track –Stereo—two tracks CD quality –44.1 KHz –16-bit depth

© 2010 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved Mike Meyers’ CompTIA A+ ® Guide to Managing and Troubleshooting PCs Third Edition Recorded Sound Formats Pulse code modulation (PCM) –Developed for telephone calls –Better known as the WAV format (waveform) –Large files Four-minute song at 44.1 KHz and 16-bit stereo is greater than 40 MB –Compressor/decompressor (CODEC) programs Algorithms developed to compress sound files MPEG-1 Layer 3 codec or MP3 is one example of a codec

© 2010 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved Mike Meyers’ CompTIA A+ ® Guide to Managing and Troubleshooting PCs Third Edition Playing Sounds Every sound card can play WAV files using sound player software –Windows Media Player comes with Windows –iTunes is Apple’s media program –Many other good sound players are available

© 2010 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved Mike Meyers’ CompTIA A+ ® Guide to Managing and Troubleshooting PCs Third Edition MIDI Musical Instrument Digital Interface –MIDI file is a text file Contains a series of commands that describe –What note to play –How long to play it –Which instruments to use Tiny in size compared to WAV files –First movement of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony is 78 MB as a WAV file and 60 KB as a MIDI file

© 2010 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved Mike Meyers’ CompTIA A+ ® Guide to Managing and Troubleshooting PCs Third Edition MIDI (continued) Sound cards play MIDI files using one of two technologies –FM synthesis Strictly electronic—software says what to play –Wave table synthesis Uses recorded sounds (WAV files) to start Modifies characteristics of sounds to create amplitude, frequency, and timbre desired Polyphony of card—how many instruments it can play at once (64 instruments is common)

© 2010 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved Mike Meyers’ CompTIA A+ ® Guide to Managing and Troubleshooting PCs Third Edition Other File Formats Over 100 sound formats –AAC – Advanced Audio Coding – the native format for Apple’s iTunes –AIFF – Audio Interchange File Format – popular format for Macintosh computers –ASM - Assembly Language Source – compressed files often seen on the Internet and used in streaming sound –ASX – Microsoft Advanced Streaming Redirector –AU – Often seen in Windows, Sun, Next, UNIX, and Mac –OGG – Vorbis format – open source codex –RM – RealMedia – audio or audio and video –WMA – Windows Media Audio - proprietary

© 2010 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved Mike Meyers’ CompTIA A+ ® Guide to Managing and Troubleshooting PCs Third Edition Playing Sounds Streaming quality improving, with many stations outputting 128-Kbps signals –Media Player –iTunes –RealPlayer –WinAmp

© 2010 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved Mike Meyers’ CompTIA A+ ® Guide to Managing and Troubleshooting PCs Third Edition Getting the Right Sound Card

© 2010 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved Mike Meyers’ CompTIA A+ ® Guide to Managing and Troubleshooting PCs Third Edition Sound Cards A sound card typically has many built-in features –Two separate processors (one for MIDI and one for the rest) –Support chips for joysticks –Recording capabilities –MIDI instrument support –Surround sound Can be a separate sound card Often just a chip on the motherboard or part of the Southbridge

© 2010 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved Mike Meyers’ CompTIA A+ ® Guide to Managing and Troubleshooting PCs Third Edition Sound Card Differences Sound cards differ in six basic areas –Processor capabilities –Audio standards –Speaker support –Recording quality –Jacks –Extra features Processor handles communication among the application, OS, and CPU –Low-end sound cards let your CPU do most of the work –Better sound cards do most of the processing, which accelerates the sound process and provides better sound quality

© 2010 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved Mike Meyers’ CompTIA A+ ® Guide to Managing and Troubleshooting PCs Third Edition Audio Standards AC’97 –Up to 6 channels –48 KHz/20-bit –Obviously an old standard, but implemented on many motherboards still High Definition Audio (HDA) –Intel standard –Up to 8 channels –192 KHz/32-bit –Code name: Azalia Often see implementations using “Azalia”

© 2010 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved Mike Meyers’ CompTIA A+ ® Guide to Managing and Troubleshooting PCs Third Edition Sound Card Differences (continued) Speaker support –Basic support—two speakers or headphones –Better sound cards support five or more speakers –Often have a subwoofer –5.1 means 5 speakers with 1 subwoofer Recording quality –Signal-to-noise (S/N) ratio expressed in decibels –Low-end cards have S/N ratio of 30 to 50 decibels –Records artifacts (noise) when there is no actual noise –High-end cards offer a 96 to 100+ S/N ratio

© 2010 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved Mike Meyers’ CompTIA A+ ® Guide to Managing and Troubleshooting PCs Third Edition Sound Card Differences (continued) Jacks –Line In and Line Out converters enable the sound card to send and receive input and output from other devices –The Line In connector runs to a Line Out or Aux connector on the back of a stereo receiving system –Rear Out connects to the rear speakers for surround sound –Analog/Digital Out for external digital connections –Microphone and Joystick

© 2010 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved Mike Meyers’ CompTIA A+ ® Guide to Managing and Troubleshooting PCs Third Edition Sound Card Connections Mini-audio connections –Main stereo speaker is green –Line In connector is blue –Microphone connector is pink

© 2010 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved Mike Meyers’ CompTIA A+ ® Guide to Managing and Troubleshooting PCs Third Edition Sound Card Differences (continued) Extra Features –Almost all motherboards have built-in sound –Extra goodies needed to entice buyers for standalone sound cards Digital output to integrate PC with home entertainment system or DVD receiver Surround-sound speaker connections Breakout box adding ports to front of PC More

© 2010 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved Mike Meyers’ CompTIA A+ ® Guide to Managing and Troubleshooting PCs Third Edition Lab – Sound Hardware Most current motherboards have built-in sound, does yours? How can you determine if the motherboard has built-in sound hardware? What audio standard does the sound hardware support? How many speakers does it support?

© 2010 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved Mike Meyers’ CompTIA A+ ® Guide to Managing and Troubleshooting PCs Third Edition Audio Cables Playing audio CDs through your sound card used to require a cable from your optical drive to the sound card –Most optical drives come with an MPC2 audio cable for this purpose Modern systems don't use this cable

© 2010 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved Mike Meyers’ CompTIA A+ ® Guide to Managing and Troubleshooting PCs Third Edition Speaker Standards Stereo –Left and right 2.1 systems –Pair of speakers called satellites and a subwoofer

© 2010 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved Mike Meyers’ CompTIA A+ ® Guide to Managing and Troubleshooting PCs Third Edition Surround-Sound Standards Dolby Digital –Supports five channels plus subwoofer (5.1) –Front right, front left, front center, rear left, rear right Digital Theatre System (DTS) –Competing standard that also supports 5.1 Sony/Philips Digital Interface (S/PDIF) –Uses single connector for entire 5.1 (or greater) system

© 2010 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved Mike Meyers’ CompTIA A+ ® Guide to Managing and Troubleshooting PCs Third Edition Surround-Sound Standards (continued) DirectX provides applications, primarily games, with direct access to hardware –Offers developers easy-to-use commands –Easy to program sounds in the desired channel DirectSound3D (DS3D) –Can place a sound anywhere in 3-D space –Known as positional audio –R.I.P. in Vista (Try OpenAL now) Environmental audio extensions (EAX) –Creative Labs’ response to DS3D –Audio presets for realism in sound

© 2010 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved Mike Meyers’ CompTIA A+ ® Guide to Managing and Troubleshooting PCs Third Edition Speaker Features Controls –Volume controllers –On/off switch –Can be on speakers or on special box Headphone jack –Some systems can automatically sense when plugged in

© 2010 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved Mike Meyers’ CompTIA A+ ® Guide to Managing and Troubleshooting PCs Third Edition Installing a Sound Card in a Windows System

© 2010 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved Mike Meyers’ CompTIA A+ ® Guide to Managing and Troubleshooting PCs Third Edition Physical Installation Installs like any other PCI card –Plug in the card –Load the drivers –Test Hardest part may be identifying where to plug in speakers –Refer to documentation –Typical stereo or 2.1 speaker system plugs into Speaker or Speaker 1 port –Surround-sound speakers may use single S/PDIF

© 2010 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved Mike Meyers’ CompTIA A+ ® Guide to Managing and Troubleshooting PCs Third Edition Physical Installation (continued) Basic steps –Shut down your computer, unplug it, and open the case –Find an open PCI or PCIe slot and install the card –Connect the CD audio cable to the drive and the card

© 2010 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved Mike Meyers’ CompTIA A+ ® Guide to Managing and Troubleshooting PCs Third Edition Installing Drivers Let Windows install drivers –If necessary/desired, use CD that came with sound card If installing a USB sound card –Follow the cardinal rule for USB drivers: Install the USB driver before the USB device Verify driver is installed by checking Device Manager Test

© 2010 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved Mike Meyers’ CompTIA A+ ® Guide to Managing and Troubleshooting PCs Third Edition Windows Configuration Applications Most sound card configuration can be done with the operating system utilities –Control Panel applet: Sound in Vista, Sounds and Audio Devices applet in Windows XP, Sounds and Multimedia in Windows 2000 –Five tabs in 2000/XP Volume Sounds Audio Voice Hardware

© 2010 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved Mike Meyers’ CompTIA A+ ® Guide to Managing and Troubleshooting PCs Third Edition Windows Configuration Applications (continued) Vista has better support for multiple speakers and HDMI

© 2010 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved Mike Meyers’ CompTIA A+ ® Guide to Managing and Troubleshooting PCs Third Edition Proprietary Configuration Apps Adds access to other features that aren’t otherwise available Autosensing—allows hardware to be plugged in using different ports and the ports adjust –Plug microphone into speaker port and speaker port becomes a microphone port

© 2010 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved Mike Meyers’ CompTIA A+ ® Guide to Managing and Troubleshooting PCs Third Edition Some sound cards install extra software –Goal is to provide user with extra free software –These programs aren’t needed to use any of the features –Intended to provide extra value for the purchase Installing Applications

© 2010 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved Mike Meyers’ CompTIA A+ ® Guide to Managing and Troubleshooting PCs Third Edition Hardware Problems Volume –Check physical controls –Check software controls Windows Volume controls Speakers –Ensure they are turned on and getting good power –Make sure they are plugged in –Check for visual indicators that a sound is playing Replace speakers if blown speakers suspected

© 2010 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved Mike Meyers’ CompTIA A+ ® Guide to Managing and Troubleshooting PCs Third Edition Configuration Problems First place to check: Device Manager –Consider reinstalling driver Ensure the latest device drivers are installed –Check the manufacturer’s Web site for updates Review the Sounds and Audio Devices applet settings

© 2010 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved Mike Meyers’ CompTIA A+ ® Guide to Managing and Troubleshooting PCs Third Edition Application Problems First, look for an error message –Check the application’s support site Second, check the sound file –Sound files might be corrupted Last, reinstall the application

© 2010 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved Mike Meyers’ CompTIA A+ ® Guide to Managing and Troubleshooting PCs Third Edition Hardware –Designed to accept incoming video Video Capture

© 2010 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved Mike Meyers’ CompTIA A+ ® Guide to Managing and Troubleshooting PCs Third Edition Software –Controls the hardware –Usually also edits Video Capture (continued)

© 2010 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved Mike Meyers’ CompTIA A+ ® Guide to Managing and Troubleshooting PCs Third Edition Consists of two parts, video and audio –Each part may have its own compression –Compressed audio and video combined into a container file (wrapper) –The file name does not always tell you the compression Multimedia File Formats

© 2010 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved Mike Meyers’ CompTIA A+ ® Guide to Managing and Troubleshooting PCs Third Edition AcronymDescription MPEG-2Used for DVDs MPEG-4Used in Internet broadcasts H.264Used in high-def movies for Blu-ray discs & others WMVWindows Media Video TheoraOpen source codec for Ogg project TrueMotionUsed in Adobe Flash (VP6) and Skype (VP7) VC-1Microsoft hi-def codec usually wrapped in WMV file Video Codecs Videos typically have sound built in –Some common video codecs:

© 2010 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved Mike Meyers’ CompTIA A+ ® Guide to Managing and Troubleshooting PCs Third Edition AcronymDescription ASFMainly for WMA/WMV streams AVIStandard file for Windows FLVFlash Video can use H.263, VP6 or H.264 MOVApple QuickTime container for Mac and Windows MPEG-TSMPEG-2 Transport Stream for many streams OggOpen source container for Vorbis & Theora codecs Video Wrappers Some common multimedia wrappers

© 2010 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved Mike Meyers’ CompTIA A+ ® Guide to Managing and Troubleshooting PCs Third Edition Troubleshooting Video Try these if you experience dropped frames –Turn off unnecessary programs –Turn off background processes –Turn off playback/preview Try these for sync problems –Change or update software –Try capturing analog to digital video cam and then go from video cam to PC –Check out

© 2010 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved Mike Meyers’ CompTIA A+ ® Guide to Managing and Troubleshooting PCs Third Edition Troubleshooting Video (continued) For poor capture quality, try these –See “dropped frames” –Upgrade hardware Should have a top-notch CPU Need gobs of RAM –Check video source Not much can be done if source is degraded

© 2010 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved Mike Meyers’ CompTIA A+ ® Guide to Managing and Troubleshooting PCs Third Edition Troubleshooting Video (continued) Missing Codecs –Sound, but no video –Player will warn you Check your codecs

© 2010 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved Mike Meyers’ CompTIA A+ ® Guide to Managing and Troubleshooting PCs Third Edition Tuner Hardware Acts as the interface between cable/satellite or over-the-air TV signals and your computer

© 2010 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved Mike Meyers’ CompTIA A+ ® Guide to Managing and Troubleshooting PCs Third Edition Tuner Software Controls the tuner hardware to let you watch TV programs

© 2010 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved Mike Meyers’ CompTIA A+ ® Guide to Managing and Troubleshooting PCs Third Edition Beyond A+ Sound card benchmarking –PC performance issues may be related to your sound card –Analyze your sound card with RightMark 3DSound from iXBT.Com/Digit-Life –

© 2010 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved Mike Meyers’ CompTIA A+ ® Guide to Managing and Troubleshooting PCs Third Edition