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Microphone issue

Posted: Sun Dec 02, 2012 5:12 pm
by AlanDavison
Hi,

I'm having a bit of a problem recording my microphone with Action!, and was wondering if I could get any input in settings I've messed up, or something I might have missed. The issue at its most basic is that Action! simply will not record my microphone, be it into a separate audio track in the .AVI (there's only ever the one audio track), or baked into the one audio track along with the system sounds.

I've recorded a video demonstrating the issue here: http://youtu.be/fvdG1PGzCjU
Throughout the video, I was making noises in the background that were being picked up by my microphone as I could see on the mixer on my desk, and in the Windows sound control panel dialog.

Also, here's a screenshot of the waveform in the original AVI, with +300dB (yes, +300dB) gain added: http://i.imgur.com/jkEPv.png

Any kind of input would be appreciated here, since one of the major draws to Action! for me was the ability to record microphone audio into a separate audio track. Don't get me wrong, I still bought it, because it offered better performance and more features for me than FRAPS with much the same quality, but.. the fact it won't record my microphone at all is awfully confusing.

Thanks!

Re: Microphone issue

Posted: Tue Dec 04, 2012 12:41 pm
by daniel44
do u export the videos that u record?
after u record them are u trying to launch them with the action1 player?
if u don't so don't export ur video and try to listen to the video with the action! player before u export the video.

Re: Microphone issue

Posted: Tue Dec 04, 2012 2:42 pm
by AlanDavison
Hi,

I don't really see how that's relevant, since you can see in the screenshot of the spectrogram from the single audio track in the original .avi that Action! produced, there is simply nothing there, barring the few Windows volume control dings as shown in the video.

Thanks for the idea, but I already check every video in the Action! player as a first step, and there was nothing in this case. After that, I opened the audio track in Audition to confirm, and saw there was indeed nothing.

Thanks!

Edit: Small update! I've recorded a set of test videos. One with FRAPS, the other with Action!
I realise I accidentally missed showing the audio settings in Action! while recording this time, but rest assured that nothing was changed from the previous test video.

Video here: http://youtu.be/J1sI_xi48SA

Re: Microphone issue

Posted: Mon Jan 07, 2013 12:35 am
by AlanDavison
I do hate to double post, but.. I've done some testing (exact list at the bottom of this post), and found that Action will not record any line-in input. I've tried multiple sound cards, both on-board, and my current PCI sound card. I can also test on an old Creative X-Fi, but I saw no need to right now.

To be honest, it's getting kind of silly. It's been over a month now, and there's no technical reason Action! shouldn't be able to record from line-in, considering that FRAPS, Dxtory, Bandicam, and every other program I've tested does so properly. It's a bug, and nothing more than that.

Can any member of staff give an update on this? I emailed support, and was told it was being looked into, but nothing has come of it.

1)
  • Main sound card (ASUS Xonar Essence ST (PCI))
    • Action! always recording mic input via line-in
      Result:
      No sound captured, and no secondary audio track created in resulting file if "Record microphone into separate audio track" option is selected.
    • Action! always recording mic input via standard mic input
      Result:
      Everything works as expected. Mic input is detected and recorded.
2)
  • On-board sound card (VIA VT1828S on ASUS P7P55D-LE)
    • Action! always recording mic input via line-in
      Result:
      No sound captured, and no secondary audio track created in resulting file if "Record microphone into separate audio track" option is selected.
    • Action! always recording mic input via standard mic input
      Result:
      Everything works as expected. Mic input is detected and recorded.

Re: Microphone issue

Posted: Thu Jan 10, 2013 8:58 pm
by radi
Thanks for providing all the information. Our tech support is taking care of this issue. As far as I know they were not able to reproduce the issue yet so there's nothing I can do about it at this moment.

Re: Microphone issue

Posted: Sun Mar 31, 2013 2:58 am
by AlanDavison
Just as a very quick update, the issue was indeed fixed in 1.13.0. Line-in input is recorded to the left audio channel (to be expected, since it IS a mono input I'm using), and that can be fixed easily enough in any editor.

Very nice to be able to record my mic audio with Action!, now.