Linux audio/video questions

[me-5yx05kfkO/aqeI1yJSURBw at public.gmane.org (Matthew Gillen)]

100ji wrote:
> 2) My laptop has a touch sensitive strip that I use to increase and
> decrease volume on my laptop. This strip works fine most of the time,
> but sometimes I "think" it gets stuck and the volume goes down to 0
> and I see no way to bring it up. This issue goes away when I reboot
> the laptop. I am unable to diagnose the right cause for this. How
> would I know which input(keyboard,mouse etc..) is causing this? I
> tried xev, but it doesn't show any inputs while this is happening.

If you run gnome-volume-control, is there anything besides "headphones" in 
the "Switches" tab (you may have to play with the "Device" setting before 
you find the right one)?

> 3) Have any of you guys tried skype video chatting on linux? Does it
> work well for you? I kind of got my video to work on linux but I need
> to figure out how to make skype use it.

Yes, and yes.  I use the Logitech QuickCam Pro9000, since that's recommended 
by Skype for the High-Def (and it has good linux support).  Just plugged it 
in and it worked; "mplayer tv://" shows what my camera sees.

Once I launch skype, open Options->Video Devices, and if your video driver 
is all set up (ie if that mplayer command worked), then the right device 
should already be selected.

The audio is a little more problematic for me, in that sometimes it gets 
confused and picks the wrong microphone, even if I leave my webcam plugged 
in all the time (I want to use the mic integrated into my webcam).  So 
sometimes I have to go to Options->Audio Devices->Sound In and select the 
right thing.

Couple things to note:
  - the mplayer command will show you the best your camera can do
  - skype seems to do some resource management, and if it thinks your 
computer (or the network link to your companion) are struggling, it will 
automatically degrade the video quality and resolution (sometimes the image 
ends up postage-stamp sized).  But it the quality only gets worse (ie 
temporary hicups aren't handled well by their algorithm).  At the end of my 
long to-do list is to figure out if there is a way to control this behavior 
through some config file.

HTH,
Matt