I'm Sorry, I Have To Vent

Question

My company purchased Captivate shortly before the buy-out. It
sounded like a great product. It looked very promising. However, it
did not work with my Sony VIO's built-in sound card. (Well,
Macromedia would say it worked, you just couldn't record narration
while recording. They advised me to use a different application to
record the sound after I did the screen capture. Sort of like using
a different application to animate your Flash document after you
create it.) I also had a USB Edirol device that it wouldn't work
with. So we scrapped Captivate and went back to Camtasia.
Captivate 2.0 came out and I hoped that this one would work,
after all, Adobe bought it right? I downloaded the demo first, so
that we didn't plop down the bucks and find out it still didn't
fly. Well, it didn't. They added a nice little selector though from
line to mic. A nice step towards full functionality. Maybe the
Audition programmers should start having lunch with the Captivate
programmers? Anyhow, I let it sit for a bit and finally got a new
Creative device that others in the office have been able to get
working with the demo. Now though, the demo expired. I contacted
Adobe and was informed that I'd get a response in 24-BUSINESS
hours, which is a bit out of the ordinary I'd say, but they're
probably having lots of support calls to make lately.
Problem is, no response. That was 11/29/06. It's now
12/11/06. They must have short days. My support portal shows
'Pending Adobe Response'. I left another message, opening a new
ticket, and commenting on the first. Both cases are still 'Pending
Adobe Response'.
<VENT>
So we have bought a product that didn't work like it should.
We were told to use another product to get what we were told we'd
get from this product. We bought other hardware to try to make this
product work like it should. And then can't get any help when that
doesn't work. I am a big fan of PS, Audition, Flash(which can be
quirky too), and other Adobe products, but this has put a real dent
in my respect for the company. #1, the product should be tested
with what is popular hardware, which USB sound capture devices are
incredibly popular (look at all the complaints about that on this
forum). #2, if the product does not do what it says, step up to the
plate and do what is right, admit it.. #3, have the fortitude to
address requests for a solution. </VENT>
I know, Adobe doesn't look at its own forums...problem is, it
apparently doesn't look at its own web cases either. So who should
I contact?

Answer 1

Sorry to hear about your problems. Before RoboDemo and During
RoboDemo develpment, I was a loud and frequent basher of the
progress. The old RoboDemo forum wad filled with posts and problems
and the total posts outnumbered this forum. This forum actually has
few posts and that is from the cumulative input of RoboDemo,
Captivate 1 and Captivate 2 users. I would say that with more and
more users, that is a sign of success.
Your issue is unique and hardware issues are tough. Just last
week I failed to install one of my products on a user's machine for
the first time. It is frustrating, but it happens.
So lets go over your hardware a bit. Assuming that you have
WindowsXP, I also assume that you upgraded to SP2 for Windows XP.
Some people running Windows ME, particularly on the Sony Vaio
PCG-C1VN computers (Caruso Chips) had all kinds of compatibility
issues.
You do have the newest drivers from Sony. Best to check their
site for any updated drivers.
Your BIOS settings cound have some port options for sound. I
doubt it, but perhaps it is not enabled in the BIOS? Again, I doubt
this is the case.
Did you try to delete the sound driver from Control Panel?
Control Panel
System
Hardware Tab
Device Manager
Sound and Video Game Controllers
You can delete the sound devices
Any device with the Yellow ! sign would be a problem for
sure.
A reboot after a delete would re-install the audio drivers
and that could stop the conflicts?
Go to Control Panel after the reboot and look at Sound and
Audio Devices. look at the advanced settings. Look At the menubar
for Options and Properties. Is sound recording even enabled? Is
sound recording level set to zero level? Is sound recoding set
(checked) to Mute? There are several settings in the sound
properties and you should browse through them all. It seems that
your microphone is on Mute.
I have seen some weird behavior when 3D sound is enabled in
the playback and you might want to see if this is turned off.
Can you record with a microphone? Microsoft has a sound
recorder in Windows or you can download Audacity and see if you can
record to that at all.
If you can record to Audacity, then there is something
unusual here. Look at Control Panel
System
Hardware Tab
Device Manager
Sound and Video Game Controllers
Spend some time looking at each device and all settings
(double click to enter the details).
You may want to try another machine. Your issue is quite
unique.
Hang in there - Version 2 is worth the effort.
Joe C.