Can the Android emulator record and play back audio using pc hardware?

Question

I don't have an android phone, but i'm trying to develop for it anyway. The only way to test my application at the moment is to use the emulator, which I've read does not support audio recording. However, I read about the startup command "-audio " which allows audio input/output from your pc using the 'winaudio' backend. I haven't been able to get it to work though, is it possible to record using my pc's microphone? If so, what am I doing wrong?

Answer 1

Yes, it can. On Mac OSX, you must set the microphone on the emulator settings, after it's opened.

While the emulator is opened, on the right side bar (where the volume buttons are localized), click on the three dots (last button of the list) to open the emulator settings.

On the settings screen (called "Extended controls"), select Microphone and turn on the option "Virtual microphone uses host audio input".

Answer 2

Recording audio is possible at least in the standard 2.3.3 emulator on Windows 7; I have tried it and it works. However, the recorded audio did sound a bit weird (slow) in my case. I did not investigate the cause.

You need to add audio recording + playback support to the emulator (Android SDK and AVD manager -> Virtual devices -> Edit -> Hardware -> New). Then use the [MediaRecorder API][1] to record (MediaRecorder.AudioSource.MIC).

Code is:

fMediaRecorder= new MediaRecorder();
fMediaRecorder.setAudioSource(MediaRecorder.AudioSource.MIC);
fMediaRecorder.setOutputFormat(MediaRecorder.OutputFormat.AMR_NB);
fMediaRecorder.setAudioEncoder(MediaRecorder.AudioEncoder.AMR_NB);

fMediaRecorder.setAudioChannels(1);
fMediaRecorder.setAudioSamplingRate(8000);

fMediaRecorder.setOutputFile(fTmpFile.getAbsolutePath());

fMediaRecorder.prepare();

fMediaRecorder.start();

You also need

<uses-permission android:name="android.permission.RECORD_AUDIO"/> 

in your AndroidManifest.xml

Works for me, but Audio IS distorted.