Higher uncompressed audio rates
To make it an "official" request (if anyone is listening...)
ConfXP could be a really good DVTS replacement for the (unfortunately, very many) bandwidth-challanged educational institutions out there. In the arts - specifically classical music - the major problem is the sound quality. Although it is amazingly good for a compressed "real-time" feed, it would be great if the program would accomodate transmission of, say, CD quality audio (stereo 16 bit 44.1 KHz). For us, the video quality does not need to be extraordinary - but the sound needs to be as good as possible.
Thanks for the consideration.
All Replies
Jose,
Does the uncompressed audio option meet your need, or is it too much bandwidth?
JVE
Looks like I never replied to this email, and don't know if anyone is still listening here - I have sent an email to Paul about this as well. As JVE noted previously, the only uncompressed audio rate that seems to work well in ConfXP is 1 channel, 16/22. Just returned from the Internet2 performing arts conference, where we examined and discussed several hardware and software solutions for distance performances, auditions and masterclass, including some of the newer video conferencing units like Lifesize. Although the video on those is generally first rate (most do HD now at fairly low bandwidth), none have implemented uncompressed audio as yet (there are discussions about this going on with Polycom and Ericsson). The demonstration during the conference comparing all the solutions clearly showed how far superior DVTS' sound was at 16/48KHz. I showed ConfXP to several people and they liked the possibilities and potential of the program - but without reliable stereo 16/44 and 16/48 uncompressed audio, ConfXP won't be ideal for use in the classical music and music teaching community. Most of us use Internet2 and bandwidth is mostly not a concern - however, many do not have the 30 Mb/s required by DVTS.
José
I should have made it clear that none of the stereo uncompressed options in ConfXP appear to work with 16 bits. Sometimes it is quite random, but I get stuttering with all high quality stereo options, regardless of CPU speed. CPU usage never gets very high with the faster computers, but still it doesn't work (even without video, it seems).
An update on the uncompressed audio issue.
I found a solution to the problem which is now available in the new sourcecode at Codeplex (thanks, Fred). CXP is now capable of sending and receiving 16bits/44.1 and 48 KHz uncompressed stereo audio without glitches, and using the buffer size settings one can get the audio and video synchronized (5000 for webcams and 10000 for DV cameras appear to work reasonably well as a starting point). In order to use a DV camera with compressed video, at the moment one needs to "rollback" to Windows Media Player 10 instead of 11 as there is an issue which prevents compressed DV working properly with WMP11. Uncompressed video and uncompressed audio also works well, and latencies appear to be better than DVTS even when using compressed video with uncompressed audio. Better stereo compressed audio (64 Kbps at16/44.1 KHz) is also possible, but this feature is not in the code as yet and will probably be included in the 5.0 CXP code.
JF
