[SRU] Increase recording quality

[Kai-Heng Feng]

[Impact]
Audio gets recorded by "arecord" has really bad sound quality when the volume is low.

[Fix]
https://github.com/alsa-project/alsa-utils/pull/69
Switch the default audio format from 8 bits to 16 bits if hardware supports it.

[Test]
1. Plug a microphone.
2. Run `arecord | aplay` and say something to the microphone.
3. Only noise can be heard.

With the fix applied, the recording is clear.

[Where problems could occur]
If there's any hardware falsely advertised to support 16 bits, this change will break them.
However, this is effectively using `arecord -f cd` or `arecord -f cdr`, so that's not likely.

[Kai-Heng Feng (kaihengfeng)]

debdiff for Hirsute

[Kai-Heng Feng (kaihengfeng)]

debdiff for Groovy

[Kai-Heng Feng (kaihengfeng)]

debdiff for Focal

[Ubuntu Foundations Team Bug Bot (crichton)]

The attachment "alsa-utils_1.2.4-1ubuntu3.debdiff" seems to be a debdiff. The ubuntu-sponsors team has been subscribed to the bug report so that they can review and hopefully sponsor the debdiff. If the attachment isn't a patch, please remove the "patch" flag from the attachment, remove the "patch" tag, and if you are member of the ~ubuntu-sponsors, unsubscribe the team.

[This is an automated message performed by a Launchpad user owned by ~brian-murray, for any issue please contact him.]

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

Thanks, I've uploaded to focal and hirsute. Do you care about 20.10 at this point? It feels like we could probably skip this one to spare some verification work since it's about to be replaced by a new stable and isn't a LTS

[Kai-Heng Feng (kaihengfeng)]

Yes we can skip groovy. Thanks!

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

This bug was fixed in the package alsa-utils - 1.2.4-1ubuntu3

---------------
alsa-utils (1.2.4-1ubuntu3) hirsute; urgency=medium

  * d/p/0013-aplay-try-to-use-16-bit-format-to-increase-capture-q.patch
    - aplay: try to use 16-bit format to increase capture quality
    (LP: #1923841)

 -- Kai-Heng Feng <email address hidden> Wed, 14 Apr 2021 16:27:22 +0800

[Timo Aaltonen (tjaalton)]

Hello Kai-Heng, or anyone else affected,

Accepted alsa-utils into focal-proposed. The package will build now and be available at https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/alsa-utils/1.2.2-1ubuntu2.1 in a few hours, and then in the -proposed repository.

Please help us by testing this new package. See https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Testing/EnableProposed for documentation on how to enable and use -proposed. Your feedback will aid us getting this update out to other Ubuntu users.

If this package fixes the bug for you, please add a comment to this bug, mentioning the version of the package you tested, what testing has been performed on the package and change the tag from verification-needed-focal to verification-done-focal. If it does not fix the bug for you, please add a comment stating that, and change the tag to verification-failed-focal. In either case, without details of your testing we will not be able to proceed.

Further information regarding the verification process can be found at https://wiki.ubuntu.com/QATeam/PerformingSRUVerification . Thank you in advance for helping!

N.B. The updated package will be released to -updates after the bug(s) fixed by this package have been verified and the package has been in -proposed for a minimum of 7 days.

[Kai-Heng Feng (kaihengfeng)]

The arecord defaults to use 8 bits for recording.

Enable -proposed and update, arecord now defaults to 16 bits and the audio being recorded becomes much clearer.

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

This bug was fixed in the package alsa-utils - 1.2.2-1ubuntu2.1

---------------
alsa-utils (1.2.2-1ubuntu2.1) focal; urgency=medium

  * d/p/0013-aplay-try-to-use-16-bit-format-to-increase-capture-q.patch
    - aplay: try to use 16-bit format to increase capture quality
    (LP: #1923841)

 -- Kai-Heng Feng <email address hidden> Wed, 14 Apr 2021 21:38:30 +0800

[Łukasz Zemczak (sil2100)]

The verification of the Stable Release Update for alsa-utils has completed successfully and the package is now being released to -updates. Subsequently, the Ubuntu Stable Release Updates Team is being unsubscribed and will not receive messages about this bug report. In the event that you encounter a regression using the package from -updates please report a new bug using ubuntu-bug and tag the bug report regression-update so we can easily find any regressions.