Re: Netphone conference

Andrew Garton (agarton@toysatellite.com.au)
Mon, 16 Jun 1997 19:38:48 +1000

At 06:34 15/06/97 -0700, you wrote:
>Monika Wunderer wrote:
>
>> good idea!! will contact them right away (aham, what do you mean with the
>> hotdog communication suite?), yes, I am late with this, but the problem is
>> , that we are still not sure if we can use their software?
>
>:-) You can use their software. That's what the evaluation copies are
>about. Just don't try to sell it to anyone.

Greetings!

A few shillings worth from down under :)

I am wondering why we aren't talking about RealAudio? Sure, NetPhones have
their place when it comes to organising across vast distances, but they're
not stable enough, nor is Powwow for the kind of project Oudeis is panning
out to be.

Jim points out the basic problems with different platforms which are issues
I've faced with my online opera, Auslaender und Staatenlose. We chose a
common plaform that is not resource hungry, that works quite well and
supports a decent compression ratio ensuring reasonable quality. The only
problem we face with RealAudio, is server access. But, we now have a RA
server as sponoser which all our sites (Moscow, London, Prague, Melbourne)
will use. Ars Electronica will provide us with RA server access too,
eventually enabling all the European sites to run off one RA server in Linz.

NetPhones and the like, from my experience, are more prone to inconsistent
performance. At least with RA, drop outs are buffered. You also have the
added advantage of "recording" your performance leaving RA files to be
retrieved at a later stage. The performance becomes archived and available
at all times.

There are bandwidth issues to deal with as well when it comes to RA, but if
Prodigy, the Orb, Bowie and many others are happy to use RA in RealTime I
can't see why Oudeis shouldn't at least consider it as a serious option.

Andrew :)

---
   Andrew Garton                  agarton@toysatellite.com.au


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