Yesterday’s hour-and-a-half-long webinar on ISDN alternatives made me a believer…a believer that entrepreneurship is thriving… personal & passionate initiative is an unstoppable force… and innovation is alive and well in this world.
VoiceOverXtra sponsored the webinar. Co-presenter Dan Lenard and helper Anthony Gettig worked together with me and John Florian to present a side-by-side comparison of the three emerging ISDN Alternatives: Source-Connect NOW, ipDTL, and SoundStreak. Joining us with all the right answers were the developers Robert Marshall and Rebekah Wilson of SC Now, Kevin Leach of ipDTL, and Wesley Chinn of SoundStreak.
All three of these products are in continuing stages of development, although two of them are officially “out of Beta” and in full release (ipDTL and Sound Streak). New features are coming out steadily, and all three are robust alternatives to ISDN…even better in many ways.
Some takeaways:
1) One attendee posed the question during the webinar as to why anyone would want all three products. My answer was, you don’t need all three, so your choice depends on a few factors:
- cost
- what are producers are asking for
- your understanding of and comfort with the program
- the feature set appropriate for your needs
- customer service
Pick one (ok, maybe two) of the three emerging ISDN alternatives, and start needling your old ISDN producers to think about switching.
2) Another question that has no succinct answer deals with the sometimes-unreliable nature of the internet. Broadband providers are not created equal, and this is an ever-present variable that can’t be predicted. However, in general, the efficacy of the IP network is much higher today than even a couple of years ago. Also, connecting to others within your network (eg. AT&T or Verizon) will always have priority switching than trying to connect across networks.
3) All of the guest presenters agreed that while their product capabilities rise to 384 or even 528 kbps, you don’t necessarily get higher quality audio with the higher numbers (to most ears). In most cases 96 or 128 kpbs is more than adequate. Shooting for higher bitrates may very likely push your IP’s capabilities beyond a threshold that resolves delays or overloads your network providers’ bandwidth.
4) The Opus codec that all three programs use, produces a higher quality sound than the mpeg-2 layer used in today’s ISDN codecs.
These and other tips were openly shared in the webinar, and you can still get a copy. Here’s the link: https://www.voiceoverxtra.com/webinar_reg.htm?webinar_sess_id=vnjqqsmv
One final nugget: ipDTL’s Kevin Leach is offering a 25% discount on the usual fee charged for a personal account and a guest or Link+ account. It’s only good to the end of the week. Here’s the link: http://www.ipdtl.com/vonetwork ONLY for readers of this blog who stuck around to the last line!
CourVO
