Talk and listen on the Net


Tip
Vendors of Internet telephony products have come to a startling realisation -- most people like to talk and listen at the same time. The technical term for this is full-duplex communication, and it's like talking on a phone. The alternative, half-duplex telephony, is like using a walkie-talkie or two-way radio: each party must take turns speaking. For a recommended list of full-duplex sound cards, see VocalTec's (maker of Internet Phone) Web site (http://www.vocaltec.com/fdxbr.htm).

Talk normally over the Internet by tricking your Pro Audio Spectrum board with the settings shown here

If you've got a half-duplex board, you're probably out of luck. But there are some exceptions. Among these, Creative Labs' Sound Blaster 16 and Sound Blaster AWE32 are full-duplex cards that ship with half-duplex drivers. You can download the full-duplex drivers for the SB 16 and AWE32 boards from Creative Labs' FTP server (ftp://www.creaf.com/pub/creative/drivers/sb16awe/). For Windows 95, download sbw95up.exe; for Windows 3.x, get awedw3up.exe and s16dw3up.exe.
Media Vision's Pro Audio Spectrum products are half-duplex sound boards, but they have a unique feature that lets them function like full-duplex boards. The Pro Audio Spectrum series (including the Pro Audio Studio) gives you Sound Blaster quality by using a separate, dedicated hardware section -- it's like having two separate boards in one slot. To get the full-duplex effect under Win 95, install a Pro Audio board, then select Start--Settings--Control Panel, double-click the Multimedia icon, and click the Audio tab. Choose the Pro Audio Spectrum board, which is listed as PAS16 Record (388), as your preferred recording device, and Sound Blaster Playback (210) as your preferred playback device; then click OK.
To see the Sound Blaster emulation as a choice in the Playback section's "Preferred device" list, you may first need to choose a Basic configuration. Choose Start--Settings--Control Panel, double-click the System icon, click the Device Manager tab, double-click your Pro Audio Spectrum board's icon under the "Sound, video and game controllers" branch, click the Resources tab, click the Use automatic settings box to deselect it, choose Basic configuration 1 or Basic configuration 2 from the Setting based on list, and click OK.
- Scott Spanbauer


Category: Internet
Issue: May 1997
Pages: 171-176

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