The media preferences application lets make your audio and
video settings in one place. When you launch Media, you see
a window that displays a list of "subjects" (Audio
Settings, Video Settings, etc.) on the left and a panel
of controls on the right. Selecting a subject brings up an appropriate
set of controls.
The subject list depends on the cards and devices you have attached
to your computer. Furthermore, the configurations of the controls
that are presented (on the right) when you select a subject depends
on your hardware's manufacturer - some devices provide more controls
than others.
The following sections looks at the subjects and controls for a
typical system.
Audio Settings
The Audio Settings panel looks like this (if you have a
sound card with the commonly used AC97 chipset):

The Audio Input and Audio Output menus let you select
the cards that are used for audio input and for audio output. Only
those cards that are attached to your computer are displayed in
the menu.
The Channel menu only appears if you have a multi-channel
audio card.
Check Enable Real-Time Audio if you want to improve audio
improve audio performance, but only if you have RAM to burn. Real-time
audio is set to "on" by default in systems with 64 MB
of RAM or more; it is set to "off" in systems with less
than 64 MB of RAM.
Checking Show Volume Control on Deskbar puts a Media
icon in Deskbar's Status View. You can click to pop
up a menu that lets you open Media and Sounds
preferences or the MediaPlayer
application.
Click the Restart Media Server button to make your changes
take effect.
Audio Mixer
Highlight Audio Mixer to bring up a control panel that lets
you balance the audio levels from the applications that are currently
producing sound. Each time you launch another application, the Audio
Mixer panel expands to add another control; you'll see either
one or two volume sliders depending on whether the sound is mono
or stereo.

Old Programs applies to obsolete audio applications.
The System Beep slider doesn't appear until you've actually
caused the system to beep, this is set in the Sounds
Preference application.

Audio Input
Click an audio input in the subjects list to bring up the audio
input control panel for that device. (The panel shown here is for
an emu10k-based audio card).

Source lets you select the sound source that audio recording
applications will record from. The menu here lets you choose from
Line In, Mic, CD and others (Remember, the
configuration is hardware-dependent).
Analog Record Level and Mic Boost let you alter the
gain (or volume) of the input signal.
Audio Output
Click an audio output in the subjects list to bring up the audio
output control panel for that device.

The sliders are volume controls for the different signals that
are card handles. The slider labelled Mixer is the output
of the Zeta audio mixer - in other words, it's the sum of the signals
that you saw in the Audio Mixer panel.
Video
The Video Settings panel of the Media
preferences looks like this:

The Video Input and Video Output
menus lets you select the cards or devices that are used for video
input and video output. Only those devices that are attached to
your computer are displayed in the menu.
Check Enable Real-Time Video if you want to improve
video preformance, but only if you have plenty of RAM. Enable
Real-Time Video is set to "off" by default.
After you make your selections in this panel click the Restart
Media Server button to make your selections take effect.
Video Input
The video input panel lets you set up your video input signal.
The panel's configuration depends on the device that you're receiving
from; the panel shown is for the ... video capture card.
The Controls tab lets you choose your Video
Input and Audio Input
(the ... has its own audio hardware). If the video input is Tuner,
you can also set the Channel you want to watch.
The other controls, on the right side of the panel, fine-tune
the picture.
The Options tab lets you set the image size and
color resolution. The four checkboxes are filters that are applied
(if checked) to the picture:
- Luma Coring (luminance) - reduces anti-aliasing
artifacts
- Chroma Comb (chrominance) - enhances color
consistency
- Gamma - automatically corrects screen brightness
- Error Diffusion tries to remove visual anomalies
and static. These settings are checked "on" by default.
The Input Names tab lets you reassign the items
that appear in the Video Input and Audio
Input menus that are presented back in the Controls
tab. You would only do this if the menu items are mislabelled,
as discussed above. The Video 1 selection becomes
the first item in the Video Input menu, Video
2 is the second item in that menu, and so on. Note that
this doesn't affect your hardware or your video applications, it
just makes the controls presented here easier to deal with.

The Hardware Setup tab asks you to describe your
terrestrial location and the hardware you're using. The Video
Format in the U.S. is NTSC-M and in Europe PAL or SECAM.
The manufacturer of your video capture card can use any one of several
Tuner brands; the most common is Philips, but check
your card to be sure. Set Tuner Locale according
to the method of broadcast transmission in your local area.
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