[GnomeMeeting-list] Continuing sound problem

["E. Sean Rintel" <er8430 albany edu>]

Hi all!

I wrote a few weeks back with a sound conflict problem. I took
everyone's advice and managed to install ALSA on my system. ALSA is now
apparently working, but the sound quality when I try to call my partner
is bad at her end. She says she only hears every second word and the
quality sounds like I'm underwater!

I'm on a cable connection using Gnome 2 on top of Mandrake 9 with a
Soundbaster PCI128 sound card and Logitech Quickcam. My partne is on a
56k modem connection using NetMeeting (with the MS-GSM codec). We have
both used NetMeeting successfully, so her connection seems to be able to
support reasonable video and audio connections.

So, is my problem that:

a) OpenH323 doesn't deal well with low bandwidth? That is, it's not my
problem, really, but a downer. 

b) I don't have ALSA installed correctly? Damien said that ALSA can deal
with the full-duplex problem of the SoundBlaster PCI128, but do I need
to configure any options to do that? Also, although draksound tells me
that I'm using the ALSA sound system, I'm not sure that I'm using the
ALSA devices. GnomeMeeting tells me that my audio player is
dev/sound/dsp, mixer is dev/mixer, audio recorder is dev/sound/dsp, and
recorder mixer is dev/mixer. Does that sound right? 

c) Should I kill ESD? I tried that this morning but the video
disappeared!

d) I'm running GAIM at the same time, but with sound disabled. We use
GAIM so that she can give me her IP address (she has dynamic IP
addressing). Could GAIM be conflicting?

It's a big ask, but I'd like to test my setup with someone on a cable
connection using GnomeMeeting or NetMeeting with MS-GSM enabled, to see
whether the sound is as bad in that case. If you've got some time and a
willingness to help a newbie (new to linux and GM, but not entirely
clueless), please let me know. 

Until anon,

Sean

-- 
E. Sean Rintel
Communication Department
University at Albany, SUNY
Albany, NY, 12222, USA
http://www.albany.edu/~er8430