Topics relating to wideband telephony, aka. HDVoice or HDComms
The May 25th VUC call with the teams from RIM and Truphone was interesting. It’s great to hear that RIM is taking audio quality seriously as they go forward. I certainly hope that they get some traction with that strategy. As someone who has trumpeted the merits of HDVoice for a few years, any help to raise awareness of the benefits of improved audio quality is truly appreciated.
Ooma has been around for quite some time. While the core of their service offering is free domestic long distance one you’ve bought the hardware, they have also made some effort to promote improved call quality…all the way to HDVoice.
The companies end-point device, a $199 device known as “Telo”
Telo is actually Linux-based and runs an instance of Freeswitch to handle its telephony functions. That open source project has consistently moved quickly to deploy new technologies…especially new HDVoice codecs. Ooma leverages this fact in offering what they call “PureVoice.”
This is a semi-rant on a somewhat common theme for me, getting the best audio quality. In pondering these two new video calling devices from Tely Labs and Biscotti one thing stands out as unfortunate…they both rely exclusively upon an array of microphones built into their respective device. I find this to be short-sighted and unnecessarily inflexible.
Consider of you will the sample video that Jim Courtney recorded speaking with a gentleman from Tely Labs. The video quality is good. The audio quality is good…but it could be a lot better.
At both ends of the call there’s considerable room tone. In particular you can clearly hear that the conference room at Tely Labs is a simple drywall box. It sounds boomy and reverberant.
As I have described elsewhere, I find that the use of a speakerphone is always a last resort. It’s really only appropriate when you have a group of people collected for a call. To use a speakerphone when the call is just on-to-one is to permit the ambient noise and nature of the room to have undue influence in the audio quality.
It’s truly a bloggers dream when readers are very engaged. When someone goes to the trouble of leaving a comment, especially asking a question, I always try to provide a response.
Some questions seem to leap beyond the confines of the comment trail on the post that inspired them. This was the case when BillH left a comment after my post on the case for using a headset in the home office.
Bill’s situation provided an array of questions. Some of his concerns may be unique, but most seemed like they might impact anyone. There were so many possible solutions to be considered.
This post is about the recent loss of a not-so-old friend and travelling companion. It’s sad when we lose a friend, especially when they’re still young and in their prime.
This past week I’ve been lamenting the loss of my Plantronics Voyager Pro UC V2
Yes teacher, my dog ate my headset. I swear its true. She chewed it up good!
It serves me right for leaving the little faux leather pouch within her reach.
It is a pity because I really liked that headset.
It seems that there’s a new wave of devices emerging that aim to provide high-quality video calling by way of the family TV.
This is not unfamiliar territory as both Cisco and Google have been in the space for some time. Cisco had their UMI device and associated service. Google had with the video calling capabilities built into Google TV, as exemplified by Logitech’s Revue.
It very clear that none of these prior efforts have made the kind of inroads that had been expected. Umi is no more. Logitech admitted that they took a bath on the Google TV and killed off Revue. Google seems to be continuing the Google TV effort, but it’s unclear where it’s heading.