distortion with my built in webcam/mic

I bought a new hp dv6000 in march with the built in webcam option. I use it with skype. When using skype the distortion is so bad on the receiving end that my family complains all the time. I even used the sound recorder on vista and recorded a 5 second blurp of myself and I can hear the distortion. Anyone else have this issue? The video part works fine.

 

Make sure that no speaker sound effect enhancements are attenuating your voice recordings. I found that my DV9000 was factory set to a "voice cancellation" effect used for karaoke. The net effect was that any input from the built in mics were essentially stripped of voice. I was unwittingly compensating with a maximum mic sensitivity and gain boost, not knowing that the problem was elsewhere.

It should be noted though, that even with the sound effects turned off, the built in mic sensitivity of the HP consumer computer notebooks is lousy at best. I use a Logitech USB mic for much better Skype conversing.

I do however find since I "fixed" the enhancement problem, the speakers work just great.

Never go above max sensitivity and 50% gain boost. If you need more, then you have to go with an exterior mic.

 

>>Make sure that no speaker sound effect enhancements are attenuating your voice recordings. I found that my DV9000 was factory set to a "voice cancellation" effect used for karaoke. The net effect was that any input from the built in mics were essentially stripped of voice. <<

Where do you change these settings? I could have a related problem. Every time I try to use the webcam they mic input level is set to 12 and I can't here any voice being recorded. I go into the control panel and then to the mic settings and change the mic to 80 and it works but it will reset itself to 12 the next time I try to use the camera.

Thanks.

 

Go to the speaker icon in your tray, right click and then left click on "Playback Devices". Then choose(highlight) "Speakers" and then click on properties. One of the tabs in properties is "enhancements", click on that. Then disable all sound effects.

 

Ok, thanks for the info. None of those are checked although it sounds like you might be running XP from your window descriptions? I was hoping there was some setting in the HP Quickplay software since I saw the karaoke function inside that software.

Thanks for the help.

 

hey, at least your webcam is working.