In the midst of an unbridled enthusiasm for ipDtL… one of the first providers of non-ISDN remote, high-quality recording — Source Elements — is out with a compelling competing product.
Even as World-Voices Organization calls for an industry-wide end to ISDN, pretenders to the throne are emerging with strong statements as replacements.
ipDtL and SoundStreak are both gaining traction as alternatives. There are others, but for years, Source-Connect has been a viable and working (if low key) solution to an ISDN workaround.
Now, apparently, feeling the heat of other contenders, Source-Elements has gotten busy with it’s own offering.
I had the pleasure of being in an active working online session for SourceConnect Now with Rebekah Wilson of Source-Elements. At this point, registered NOW users cannot just sign-in and connect with other registered users; a Source-Elements customer service person has to initiate the internet transaction, but this is just temporary.
screen capture of my live session with Source-Connect NOW showing simple and intuitive program interface
For this Beta test, I had to perform a registration, then a log-in (X2), but Rebekah tells me by next week, it’ll be a one-click process. After the log-in, it’s a truly brainless interchange… in seconds I was connected with Rebekah in a seamless, solid, and quality voice transaction. You’ll see VU meters actively reflecting the voice from your end, and the other end.
Again, this was only so effortless because I was already a registered Source-Connect user. She was not forthcoming with a pricing structure at this point, but I can only imagine that it is competitive (has to be).
I got the sense from Rebekah that they were on the verge of a public debut, and that’s why they’ve been so generous with granting interviews, and getting word out on social media today. Word of this product was circulating under the radar for weeks, and with this revealing look, it’s clear Source-Elements is:
1) serious about being agressive in this space
2) clearly putting some forethought into design and marketplace
3) reacting to customer demand for an easy-to-use ISDN alternative for both talent and producer/engineer.
From the “NOW” Beta website, some specs:
Beta Features:
Opus codec
Set at 128kbps for professional high-quality audio.
ISDN-like workflow
Low-latency bi-directional audio.
Conference up to 10 connections
Only limited by your bandwidth.
For music and voice
Send high-quality mono, dual mono or stereo.
Mono: Voiceover and remote ADR sessions
Dual mono: Two discrete microphones or timecode
Stereo: High-quality music monitoring and review
Easy-to-make Connections
Self-configuring, easy-to-make connections
No port-forwarding required, works on most networks automatically.
Requirements:
Mac OSX, Windows, Linux or ChromeOS
Compatible with any OS that supports Chrome Browser.
Audio device
A stereo or multi-mono CoreAudio, ASIO or Linux audio device set to 48000hz sample-rate.
Chrome Browser version 32 or higher.
Chrome Beta 33 recommended due to audio bug where you cannot set your own output with Chrome 32.
Watch this blog for further developments on this exciting product very soon! Nice work, Source-Elements!
CourVO
