USB Headsets

[robgj821]

What do you need to do to get USB Headsets working properly. I have read many posts and articles yet am unable to get it to work.

Our configuration is as follows:

     View 4.6

     Windows 7 32Bit

     Samsung NC240 Zero Clients - (Running latest Teradici firmware 3.4.0)

     Plantronics .Audio 630M headset

I have installed the Teradici Audio Driver 1.0.0.5707 when I plug in the device windows detects and installs correct drivers however audio does not work.

If i plug into Windows 7 physical machine drivers install and headset works perfectly.

If someone could please tell me where  i am going wrong or further steps I need to do that would be great.

[dquintana]

Hello robgj821,

Question or Symptom

What USB webcams, USB speakers, USB microphones, USB headsets are supported for use with a PCoIP zero client?

My USB webcams, USB speakers, USB microphones, USB headsets are not working, what is the issue?

Resolution/Answer:

Teradici  plans to add isochronous USB device support to FW3.3 for PCoIP zero  clients.  This will also require an update to VMware View 4.5.   Isochronous devices include USB speakers, headsets,  microphones and webcams.  We are expecting that some of these devices  will be functional using the FW3.3 release with zero clients.  However,  note that large scale soft phone and videoconferencing applications  (e.g., unified communications) using USB headsets  and webcams are not supported in a VMware View virtual desktop  environment.  If there is a specific USB isochronous device you require  supported on a PCoIP zero client, please provide the make and model  details to Teradici support for future test consideration.

In your case i recommend you to open a support ticket in techsupport.teradici.com because they are some usb headsets that not works.

Sure in this they can help you to resolve the issue.

Diego Quintana

---
Diego Quintana

[williamsfudge]

Hey Rob --

I have a similar setup in my company for 60+ users:

View 4.6

Win XP (32bit)

Samsung NC190 or Wyse P20

Linked Clones

Platronics C220 (business grade USB headset)

If you are trying to use this for VoIP -- the technology isn't officially support yet -- but it "could" soon. (NDA prevent more info).

I installed the Teradici Audio drivers onto the golden image.  Then when I logged into each desktop, I had to go to the sound properties and change it from vmware virtual audio to Teradici audio drive for both the playback and recording devices.  Have you checked these settings?

Have you tried an "analog" headset (3.5mm plugs) on the NC240?  I also got this to work.

Listening to audio was perfect.  BUT the same was not true for sending voice -- it was not together.

Open up a support ticket with Teradici - they have good support and could walk you through it.  Please post results!

[gunnarb]

I think you do have a ticket open with Teradici, at least I know I see a ticket about this open.  I wanted to reply on this so others could see.

USB Audio is supported from a protocol/client stand point, however, the most common reason you'd want to do this is for VoIP/SoftPhone type scenarios, this is not supported via VMWare View.

The Teradici Audio driver fixes a lot of audio issues, however this is only beneficial for analog devices not USB.  With Analog we prioritize the channel so you can get a pretty good call quality because we look at that stream and mark it higher in priority than USB.  USB is very low on the priority stream so this is one of the major headaches with using USB audio.  To further complicate the issue, say you could prioritize USB traffic, the fact is you wouldn't always want to.  I wouldn't want the use of a flash drive to take all the bandwidth and cause poor performance.  However, maybe I'm willing to deal with a less responsive desktop when I'm on my (non-supported) softphone.  This not only requires that you would be able to prioritize USB, you'd also have to figure out what USB stream is the one you'd want to prioritize.

Also, I'm sure priority in the stream is not the only issue, I think another issue is that these USB headsets are a software based sound card, which is why you have to install a bunch of drivers.  Software means CPU, CPU means interaction with ESX, and the fact is you don't get a CPU 100% of the time, you get a porition of time with the CPU and share that with all the other VMs.  The VMWare/Teradici Audio drivers are most likely built for this environment, I doubt my Logitech headset is.  That's just me speculating though.

Its much easier, and already doable, to use an analog headset, which is already prioirtized and already has a driver that works well.  For instance I use Google Voice through my Zero Client day in and day out.  I have noticed that Skype is a CPU hog so my analog voice conversations are affected by this, where as Google Voice is much nicer to my VM, and therefore I have a much clearer conversation.

I know this doesn't answer your question entirely but it does shed some light on the issue.

[AlexMags]

Have tried both usb and analog headsets.

With USB headsets the driver needs to be in the XPembeded based image.  If doing USB device redirection the thinclient OS would 'steal' the USB audio device.  It was then in use by the XP embedded OS and not availble for USB redirection to VMWare View.  A group policy startup script running devcon.exe was used to release the device (same as disabling the usb audio device in XP emedded device manager).  Audio quaility when redirecting the USB audio device was poor.

Now using the Virtual Audio driver from Teradici in the VM image.  Microphone is sounding much better without requirement to redirect the USB audio device.  Audio would drop out if VM screen went to sleep while user on VoIP call (Win7 decides the PC is idle if the screensaver kicks in) so we disabled that power management setting on VMs.

[mseymour7482]

I see that this post is a few years old, but I am having a very similar problem with USB audio.  I am using Wyse C50LE with SUSE Linux as the base OS, with Windows 7 as the virtual OS.  I have Microsoft Lifechat LX-3000 headset/microphones to use.  When I am in the thin client itself, the audio/video is just fine.  The moment I switch over to the virtual OS, the audio begins to pop and crack, and it does not even come close to matching up with the video.  I am new to all of this, i just started this job 3 weeks ago.  I am at a loss as to what to do next to make this work.  Any help out there would be greatly appreciated!

[TonyHuynh201110]

In client release train 2.2, we added support for RTAV on Linux thin clients.  RTAV will provide much better support for USB headsets than just using USB redirection.

Real-Time Audio-Video (RTAV) For Horizon View, Part 2 | VMware End-User Computing Blog - VMware Blog...