Re: Modems with Speaker/Mic Jacks?

On Fri, 07 Oct 2005 17:33:17 -0700, George
<george@nomail.com> wrote:

>Hi,
>
>I've been looking at some Windows caller ID modem programs. The one
>thing I didn't care for was the way that the audio (SAPI speech) was
>routed to the same wave output as everything else. It also wouldn't
>merge the voice signals with the running audio if there was an open
>application already using the device (Creative 1370 Ensoniq AudioPCI
>under Win2K).
>
>What exactly are the audio jacks on some modems for and would they
>solve this problem?

They're a direct line out, or can be looped into an input on
your sound card (or integrated motherboard sound). If your
sound card & driver cannot play back a sound card line-in
sound simultaneous to another wave file, you'd still have
the same issue.

>Do they become available as an additional Windows
>audio output to anything which might need them,

Only if you plug it into a line-in on the sound card, unless
it's a winmodem that also has a digitized audio output to
the system over the PCI bus.

>and play simul-
>taneously with no effect on the main outs? If so, I'll try to dig one
>up. I'd like to get the caller ID on it's own speaker.

There might be a driver setting, different driver, or
windows audio related setting that allows both audio streams
to play back simultaneously. Offhand I don't remember
what/where the setting might be but maybe someone else does?