InDashPC.org

[basilisk96]

I have searched this forum for a solution to my problem, but so far only found solutions to simultaneous playback, not recording. So here goes:

Setup: WinXP, Python2.5, C-Media AC97 VIA onboard audio.

I currently have a fully working recorder that encodes sound from an input device to a disk file on the fly. It works perfectly as long as the mixer settings are not disturbed by other applications. Normal hardware input is "Line in", where the desired source is connected.

The app runs as a Windows Service and is mostly a hands-off process. But when some other app comes along and switches the active recording control to something else, such as mic or wave, etc., I lose the desired input source. My choices are:
1. Get a dedicated box for my app (not very practical but possible).
2. Get a second sound card?
3. Get a sound card that allows multiple simultaneous inputs for recording.
4. Utilize pymedia's features somehow to monitor multiple inputs so that only the desired input is recorded and others are either ignored or recorded to separate streams.

Regarding choice #4, I have tried using Mixer. I was able to retrieve all controls of the input device, but all I can do is adjust volumes using setValue() calls. Using setActive() has no effect at all; furthermore, all controls in the getControls() list always have 'active' set to 0, even the current active rec control. It's a little puzzling.

Any ideas?
Thanks!

[jbors]

Yeah, I'm not sure if I ever made setActive() work on Win32. On linux it worked fine though. Try to check the code for possible issues and post a patch

[basilisk96]

I can try, but no promises - I am not nearly as good with C/C++ as I am with Python. Since a few weeks ago, I now have VC++7. So - if nothing else, hopefully I'll at least be able to build pymedia on win32 by myself without begging for binaries next time.

To start, I'll try to follow the chaos howto for building on win32 and see if I succeed with the current sources. Then I'll see what kind of damage I can do to setActive.

But anyway, here is a follow-up question: is setActive the proper way to handle this situation? In my mind it seems that I would have to monitor the mixer in real time and set active the input I need if I find something amiss. Is that correct?