Connecting Your Headphones/Microphone

In order to use the two-way audio features in Horizon Live, your computer must be equipped with a headphone/microphone combo unit which should look something like this:

You cannot effectively use computer speakers and a standalone microphone with Horizon Live.

Identify Headphone/Microphone Plugs

Your headphone/microphone set will have two plugs at the end, one for the microphone and the other for the headphones. They might look like any of the following:

 

The headphones plug (1) can be identified by one of the following characteristics:

• Colored Black or Green or Blue
• Displays a headphone logo
• Embossed with the word "phones"

The microphone plug (2) can be identified by one or more of the following characteristics:

• Colored Pink or Red
• Displays a microphone logo
• Embossed with the word "mic"

Once you know which plug is which you can find the matching jacks on your computer to plug them in.

Identifying Computer Sound Jacks

The input jacks on your computer will typically be located on the back of your desktop computer or on the side of a laptop computer. Sometimes they will be in different places. These input jacks should also be color coded, and may also be labelled with small emblems (which may not look the same as the ones on your headphones). Here are examples from two typical desktop computers of different ages, and a typical laptop:

1.
 
2.
 
3.

On your computer, the headphone jack will almost always be green and the microphone jack pink or red. The blue jacks in the first two photos are not the right ones.

Headphone Volume/Mute Controls

Your headphone may be equipped with controls on the cord. If so, you will generally have a rotating volume control and a mute switch similar to the one shown below:

After plugging the headphones into your computer, be sure that the volume is turned about halfway and that the microphone is not on mute.

Computer Sound/Volume Controls

The Windows operating system allows you to place a small speaker icon ( or ) in your system tray (on the lower right of your screen) to allow quick access to your system volume. To enable this, do the following:

• Windows 95/98: Go to Start > Settings > Control Panel > Multimedia > Audio and check the box that says "Show Volume Control on the taskbar"
   
• Windows ME: Go to Start > Settings > Control Panel > Sounds and Multimedia > Sounds and check the box that says "Show volume control on the taskbar"
   
• Windows 2000/XP: Go to Start > Control Panel > Sounds and Audio Devices > Volume and check "Place volume icon on the taskbar"

Once you have that icon available, you can click on it once to bring up a control to quickly adjust your system volume (or mute the volume):

You can double-click that icon to bring up the advanced volume control panel, which includes microphone volume:

Note: If you don't see the "advanced" buttons as seen above, use the Options menu and select the "Show Advanced Controls" option.

Adjusting Microphone Volume

Microphone volume can be adjusted in a few ways.

First, make sure that the microphone slider on the advanced control panel is set to about 50% (see above).

Second, many microphones are not particularly powerful and you may need to boost the microphone input by clicking on the "Advanced" button in the microphone control section of the full control panel and selecting the "Mic-Boost" option:

Finally, within the Horizon Live HearMe audio application (available when you have connected to your live class session, you can adjust the microphone volume using the appropriate slider: