A lot of time it is a problem to detect the mic and configure it for using it.

USB Speakers are becoming more popular as lower-energy options for external sound support on computers.

However, while Ubuntu Intrepid detected my usb speakers, choosing the spekers as primary in System > Preferences > Sound resulted in wildly inconsistent results, or else defaulted to the inboard speaker on my laptop.

I can only assume similar issues with USB headsets, as typically Ubuntu sees these as a supplemental audio device.

I'd like that Ubuntu came with a separate submenu for audio and another for video instead of the existen "Audio and video" in the aplications menu. I use lots of audio & video apps and that menu is huge, but above all is not nice to have the both mixed up.

I think Totem player should be expanded by Canonical to allow the user to copy/paste the hyperlink of the YouTube page onto a text box in Totem Player which then downloads the audio of the video and compiles it as .mp3/.ogg etc.

I think Totem should have an option to "render" (I don't know the correct word when applied to audio instead of graphics) fade-in, cross-fade and particularly fade-out effects for. Just like the Totem window "fades-disappears" when compositing&Compiz are enabled, so should music do: fade out over a (configurable) period of between 0.1 and 2 s so it's not cut abruptly when Totem is closed.

I think these options could go into the Sound tab of the Preferences dialog which is currently quite empty with just the "channels" control.

With pulseaudio having entered the ubuntu scene, there should be an easy way to play sound over the network.

Consider the following scenario: I'm listening to a podcast on my desktop box. I want to leave my desk (say, sit in the couch in the living room with my laptop) and continue listening to the podcast.

[one idea for an implementation]
I click the pulseaudio panel applet, select "play all sound on Laptopster" from the drop-down menu, and the sound switches instantly to my laptop. I pick it up and lounge in the couch. When I return, I click the panel applet again, and select "play all sound on this computer".

Ideas to take this further: doing it on a per-application basis [I don't think it'll be needed often]. Making it easy to hotkey. Tunnel the sound through ssh if the keys are there.

One thing that should be implemented is a PulseAudio sound applet that works extremely similar to the wireless network applet, in order to keep consistency and simple use. The at first visual difference would be that instead of showing signal bars there would be a volume control in its place (Similar to how the VLC player 0.9.x volume control looks.). Then instead of network streams obviously audio streams by application ( for the default ), make sure to place an application icon on the left spacing that will make it so people can easily and efficently spot what that stream relates to.
Also by right clicking on the stream in the applet it shows options for controlling the stream in a more advanced fashion.

Optionally maybe a control can be integrated with metacity and allow control through the window manager. Though this may get complex over time vs a central control applet.

If anyone doesn't know PulseAudio allows you to control the audio streams by either application or by each audio stream. The applet you can currently do that with now is part of the ' padevchooser ' package(s). Though personally I say this applet isn't as easy to use or elegant as it could be, though yes it is fairly easy.

When dragging and dropping files, for example, an audio file, a good idea would be the ability to drop the audio file onto another one, and create an instant play list from within Nautilus. Clicking on this new play list will open the favoured media player to play the files.

For this, in the left hand Places bar, a new item labelled possibly along the lines of cued files, within which sorted into audio, video, and mixed, within which the created play lists would be shown automatically (I guess the respective default media folders in home could be monitored for this in the background and instantly added). The reason why I say cued files is because I would hope this concept could be applied to other files like PDF and office files, rather than just the usual media play lists, to create almost like a "To read" list, to easier go through multiple documents.

First of all, if you don't do audio production please don't vote against.

Currently music creation tools like Ardour, Jamin, Jack Control, Audacity, DSSI plugins, etc. are placed in the "Sound & Video" category, together with media players.

I suggest to move them to their own category, maybe "Audio Production". The reason is that the "Sound & Video" menu quickly becomes too crowded for people doing audio. The second reason is that they are completely different uses of the computer. Listening to music and producing music are completely different activities that involve completely different software.

Please support the Integrated Media Management Project
http://code.google.com/soc/2008/gnome/appinfo.html?csaid=15C2B5BC19A9276A

In my opinion, this is an really important project and if ubuntu/canonical can do some magic here to speed up the progress of developing, we could have some new interesting applications for the GNOME desktop.

Look at my idea http://brainstorm.ubuntu.com/idea/8195/. This could be a possible use case for such an media manager integration.