Index
Audio settings
Audio mixer
HD audio
MIDI
Video settings

media-icon_64.pngMedia

Deskbar:Preferences
Location:/boot/system/preferences/Media
Settings:~/config/settings/Media/*
~/config/settings/System Audio Mixer
~/config/settings/MediaPrefs Settings - Stores the panel's window position.

The Media preferences control the system's audio and video settings. Those range from everyday tasks like adjusting the volume, to quite low level tweaking that most users won't ever need. The various settings are grouped in categories.

index Audio settings

Audio settings

In case your computer is equipped with more that one audio interface, you can choose the Audio input, Audio output and which Channel to use. In the rare case something derails audio/video in your system, try to Restart media services.

With the checkmark you can Show volume control on Deskbar. That adds a little icon to the Deskbar tray:

Volume control of the Deskbar

A left-click on the tray icon pops up a volume slider that controls the master output. Alternatively, using the mouse wheel directly on the icon also changes the volume. As you can see from the little Replicant handle at the bottom right, you can embed this slider, for example on the Desktop.

A right-click opens a menu with shortcuts to the Media preferences, Sounds preferences and to open the MediaPlayer.

index Audio mixer

The audio mixer allows you to control the volume of the different audio streams in the system, e.g. the audio output of currently running applications.

Gain controls

Here we see the master output, and the volume sliders of the currently running MediaPlayer and a game that's using SDL Audio. With those sliders you can mix their audio output so that, for example, the game sounds don't drown out your music coming from a MediaPlayer playlist.

The 'double-knobs' of the sliders represent left/right stereo. They normally move in unison, but you can control the balance by moving just one of them with the right mouse button.
Use the checkmark to Mute a stream.

The Setup tab provides mostly low level settings:

Setup

Among all these low level tweaking parameters — that you will likely only experiment with if Haiku doesn't quite support your audio hardware out of the box — there are a few setting you might be interested in.

Attenuate mixer output by 3 dB gives a little more headroom to avoid clipping.
Display balance control in stereo connections adds a balance slider below the volume sliders on the Gain control tab instead of the 'double-knobs'.
Allow output/input channel remapping opens new tabs to map one channel to one or more others and adjust their volumes. For example, you could assign the left output channel to front-left, rear-left and center and set different volumes.
Resampling algorithm has options for Low quality (low CPU usage and latency) and High quality (slightly higher CPU usage and latency).

index HD audio (naming depends on the hardware)

Where the Audio mixer deals with the different audio streams running through Haiku, this controls the physical in/output.

HD Audio, input

There are three tabs:

General sets the Input frequency and Output frequency.
Output sets the output levels for speakers and headphones.
Input sets the input levels for line-in and microphone.

It has to be said that these hardware level settings can appear a bit haphazard…
Haiku probes the hardware and tries to make sense of what it gets back. You may see various duplicate sliders with the same label etc. You'll have to experiment a bit to find the one you're looking for.

index MIDI

The MIDI settings show all installed SoundFonts, i.e. instrument definitions. Just select the one you like. Double-clicking an entry opens its parent folder.

MIDI SoundFonts

You'll find a few SoundFonts in HaikuDepot; those appear automatically after installation. SoundFonts downloaded from the web need to be manually moved to /boot/system/non-packaged/data/synth/ (or the equivalent Home hierarchy, see topic Filesystem layout).

index Video settings

Video settings

Depending on your hardware and driver support, you can select the Video input and Video output.
As with the audio settings, clicking Restart media services might fix the odd hiccup.