Input Dropdown Greyed Out

[ShadowLass]

I previously used Audacity on a computer my husband built for me, using Windows XP Home. I was able to work with it immediately. I could pop a DVD in the DVD player and, while it was playing, place Audacity in "record" mode and record a theme song or piece of dialog off the DVD.

Last year the computer died, and, to save my husband some trouble, bought a new computer instead of parts he had to assemble. The new computer runs WinXPPro. When I loaded Audacity things were a bit different. I cannot do the DVD thing as I used to. I believe this is because the dropdown that sets the input is greyed out. I cannot set it to microphone, line in, etc. If I plug a microphone into the mike jack, it does record the input from the microphone, but my inability to set the input is hampering me otherwise.

Can you tell me what I need to set in Audacity to fix this? Or is it some setting I need to change in Windows?

Thank you.

[steve]

I'd first recommend that you upgrade to Audacity 1.3.12 http://audacityteam.org/download/

The problem is a sound card setting that you need to change. This will either be in the Windows Control Panel, or in the sound card "mixer" application (there may be an icon for the sound card near the Time/Date in the lower right corner of the Desktop).

Do you know what sort of sound card you have?
The setting that you want is to enable recording from "Stereo Mix", though it may have some different name, depending on the sound card.

[steve]

Did you know that for DVDs that are not encrypted, it is possible to "rip" (digitally extract) the audio from the DVD?
For sound quality, this is the best way to "record" a DVD.

You can do this with the free format converter "SUPER" by erightsoft.
Copy the VOB files from the DVD to your computer hard drive, then use SUPER to convert them to WAV.

[ShadowLass]

The problem is a sound card setting that you need to change. This will either be in the Windows Control Panel, or in the sound card "mixer" application (there may be an icon for the sound card near the Time/Date in the lower right corner of the Desktop).

Steve, my husband doesn't believe I have an actual sound card, but something integrated into the motherboard. I have Realtek HD Audio input and output.

Under Sounds and Audio Devices Properties I have Volume, Sounds, Audio, Voice, and Hardware. Under Audio for sound recording I only have two settings, Realtek DH Audio Input and Modem #0 Line Record. (I tried switching to the Modem setting; as I expected, it doesn't work.) I have no setting for Stereo Mix.

Thanks,
Linda

[steve]

I have no setting for Stereo Mix.

It's not looking promising, but if you look near the Time/Date in the bottom right corner of the desktop there should be an icon that allows you to open the RealTek control panel. If there is, open it and look on the "Mixer" tab. If there is a "stereo Mix" or "Mix" option in the record section, then use that. If there isn't, look for a "spanner" icon on the mixer page - if there is one then clicking on it may give you an option to select "Enable recording multi-streaming". If you have this option, enable it and you may then be able to record whatever playback devices are enabled.

If none of that works, use the "digital extraction" method.

[ShadowLass]

Hi, Steve--

Thanks for all the help. Clicking on "recording multi streaming" doesn't work, either.

I wasn't really looking to do this just to rip from DVDs. To tell you the truth, I have been listening to some streaming audio online, which I would very much like to keep. On my old computer, all I would have had to do while playing this audio is click "record" and Audacity would have recorded it. But now, zilch. Won't record from sound on the computer, or DVDs playing on the computer. I can plug a microphone in and record that way, but of course then any background noise, like the dog barking, will get into the recording, too, just like back when I was a kid and used to use my tape recorder to record off the TV.

Linda

[steve]

Clicking on "recording multi streaming" doesn't work, either.

Did you find that control?

No guarantees, but on all RealTek sound cards that I've seen where that option exists, it is possible t record sounds playing on the computer.
I can't give detailed instructions because there are so many variations of the RealTek interface, but it might be worth experimenting a bit more just to make sure.
If at the end of the day it's no go, there are a couple of other possible workarounds mentioned here: http://wiki.audacityteam.org/wiki/Mixer ... trol_Panel