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[Kurt Young]

Gentlemen,

One of the best things about Windows Media Player 9 is that its volume control only affects WMP itself.  MC's volume control adjusts the "master" setting, making all sounds made by the computer louder or quieter.  This isn't so great when you want to hear music in the background and still hear foreground sounds (such as voice chat or a video game) -- turning the volume down turns EVERYTHING down.

Would it be possible to make it so that the volume control in MC only affects MC's output, and not the general "master" output?  It would be, in my most humble opinion, a great boon.

[Kurt Young]

Sad, forlorn bump.  

[JimH]

Kurt,
I was hoping someone else would answer this.  I don't know.

We don't always get the same access to the OS that WMP does.

Jim

[Kurt Young]

Aye, I can understand that.  It didn't occur to me that it might be tied into the OS.  And I don't mean to compare MC to WMP that way, like "WMP can do it, why can't you?"  Not whining at all, and I know that there's a lot on the table.  I wouldn't be me otherwise,

Here's hoping that someone can crack into this particular nut.  Cheers!

[nila]

Jim - A couple of suggestions.

There are both ways you could 'solve' his problem.

They're not necessarily the 'right' ways of doing it but they work.

Firstly - there are a LOT of different volume controls in the volume controller. You could I'm imagining output the volume through one of those then control the volume for that. It'd effect that global volume but use one rarely used (midi for instance) and no one would notice.


OR

This one is a bit more of a cheat, you already control the volume when you use replay gain, however you do that you could do it similarly to control the overall volume.
An 'artificial' replay gain.

[dragyn]

only thing I see as "bad" is if it degrades the sound quality.

One thing you could do is turn the EQ on and lower the preamp. But again, it doesn't go all the way down to mute.

[Ingo]

only thing I see as "bad" is if it degrades the sound quality.

it shouldn't... MC has a 32-bit playback engine, right Matt? ;-) (so now we only need a 32-bit soundcard ;-( )

One thing you could do is turn the EQ on and lower the preamp. But again, it doesn't go all the way down to mute.

and it's usually quite hard to reach....

but an option to controll wave out, master volume or internal volume would still get my vote

Ingo

[Marty3d]

Same here....you find yourself tweaking volume settings way too often...both within MC and windows volume control panel...

[Matt]

We run the "master" volume because we do lots of playback -- TV, music, CD, and they can all be through different lines.

[Marty3d]

IF they can be controlled through different lines, would it be difficult to have MC to use different settings depending on which playback you use? For instance, if I use MC for TV, CD and music, then I have "different" volume sliders for which I use... Example: volume is 73% for music, when I switch to view a video it sets to 38% ... just a thought

[Matt]

IF they can be controlled through different lines, would it be difficult to have MC to use different settings depending on which playback you use? For instance, if I use MC for TV, CD and music, then I have "different" volume sliders for which I use... Example: volume is 73% for music, when I switch to view a video it sets to 38% ... just a thought

Yeah, that would be slick.

However, most soundcards sound the best with all the lines maxed out and just the master adjusted for the volume. (because mixer lines are software volumes (not hardware) so all they're doing if you turn them down is throwing away precision)

I've thought an option to "Max Mixer Lines" on startup would be nice.  I think a lot of people would report better sound quality if we did that...

[Marty3d]

OK, I didn't know that...

Well Matt, I think you should try I you think it'd be the best.. keep us posted when/if the changes are made so we can check it out, I believe it's one of those can't-decide-if-it's-not-tested-thingys

[nila]

Thanks for that new info.

I didn't realise that one, Gonna try it now

[Kurt Young]

Aye, thanks for digging into this, Matt.

Like I said, it all comes from me wanting to listen to music while doing voice chat (Check out www.teamspeak.org for the program I use... it's free, high quality, and has effectively replaced my long distance carrier) or while playing a video game; and when I turn down the volume, it turns everything down.  Life will go on if I can't do so, naturally, but I'd be a bad customer if I dinna ask,

[Philethius]

I was reading over this and I don't think I overlooked but I have a SB Live 5.1 card.  Winamp functions the same way WMP does.  Not sure if this is any help but just my two cents.