April 7, 2013

Today was a somewhat productive day in terms of game capture. The biggest hurdle was getting sound and the internet was partially helpful. I found a couple videos that showed settings that I didn't have the option for but then I kind of accidentally stumbled across something about TVs how an HDMI-to-DVI cable wouldn't work for sound because DVI cables don't transmit sound. I had the Elgata hooked up to my computer with an HDMI-to-DVI cable so that wasn't going to work. By moving one of my monitors over to that cable (which is plugged into the mini display port) I was able to plug the Elgato into the HDMI port. Originally my problem was that I couldn't have two DVI monitors and use the HDMI port for the Elgato but luckily I am able to use one DVI port, one HDMI port, and one mini display port.

So in theory that should have given me sound but I still couldn't find the option that was shown in the few videos I found on YouTube in the Recording Devices sound menu that would allow me to get sound. Then I found a video of how to get that option if it wasn't in the menu. I ended up not having to do what was mentioned in that video but I did learn how to show disabled devices, which made the option visible and allowed me to enable it. But the option within that option wasn't there so I did a lot more internet searching. To no avail. Eventually I just started to just work my way through each option in the list, picking one and seeing if the sound showed up in the Elgato software sound meter. And after a lot of trial and error I got it to work.

I don't want to read back through everything I just wrote but I feel like it probably doesn't make a lot of sense. But as I mentioned, I don't want to read back through it, so I'm not even going to try to decipher it. Moving on.

Recording a game in fullscreen mode seems to have no rhyme or reason for when it will work and when it won't. I have to start recording, start the game, and then alt-tab out of it and open it up several times before I can get it to show up in the recording. I have no idea what is happening there but I was tired of reading internet stuff and watching videos so I haven't looked into it. The only problem I had with recording sound was that there seemed to be a very slight lag to it. It seems like the solution to this will be to record the sound with Audacity and then sync it up with the video after the fact. I'm going to have to figure that out later. The point of all of this is that I have managed to get my Elgato hooked up to my computer and I can now record PC gameplay with sound, even if it is slightly laggy.

This afternoon a thunderstorm rolled into town and there was a possibility of hail later in the night so my sister said I could park my car in her garage. The problem being the couch on that side of the garage. The first time I pulled in I still had about two feet of car sticking out. So I climbed around and moved stuff and got the couch to slide back quite a bit further. But not far enough because that still left about two inches of car in the path of the garage door. So I climbed around again, moving a tiny motorcycle and boards and more pots and boxes and managed to get the couch to move just a bit more. Thankfully it was enough and we were able to get the garage door shut. I just hope we get some hail tonight to make it all worth it. Even if we don't, I'm going to pretend we do.

When I got home I started to read and record the letters I have sent my friend. I do my best to write in a conversational way but when I am reading what I write it seems to come across in a very dry, monotone sort of way and doesn't sound as good as it does in my head when I am writing. But if I keep at it maybe I will get better at reading out loud. I made it through the first two letters tonight and we'll see if I can keep it up. One of the hardest parts is actually reading my handwriting. I try my best to write legibly in the letters by not writing too terribly small and not dragging my letters together. Sometimes I succeed in this but my writing is still hard to read out loud on the first pass. I really need to improve my writing.

This coming week state assessments start again which I am not looking forward to. It is so boring. Friday is an early release day so I have that to look forward to.