VO-BB - 20 YEARS OLD!

[mstaji]

@Soundgun : Designing a GUI shouldn't be a problem (I think that is the simplest part of the whole issue at this stage) as I worked as a Graphic designer (then Art Director, then Creative Director) at several advertising companies on 3 different continents for close to 2 decades (in addition to being a voiceover artist on the side).

I've designed several Graphic User Interfaces during that period ... but that would probably be one of the last stages of the consumerification of the product.

Nonetheless you've given me something to go check out and look into and I thank you kindly!

@Frank: You too Sir have given me much to research... I was hoping you would provide me with some kind of technical synopsis since I will not be doing any coding myself (Did I mention I don't code).

So yes I'll try to do my homework and go and look into WebRTC and the Opus Codec as well as Hangouts Studio Mode (even though my research might not help move this Virtual Project forward by much).

Still thank you for what you have enlightened me with. At least we have a starting point ... I will also need to look into alternative methods of delivery... a permanent IP is expensive and not very practical to us at this stage.

Anyone else have any other suggestions?

No one has said anything further about the kickstarter idea... is it a viable prospect or do you think it is a waste of time?
_________________
Mahmoud Taji
Personal website: http://www.mahmoudtaji.com
blog: http://www.voiceemporium.com
twitter: @mahmoudtaji

[heyguido]

George and Frank hit it on the nose. Google, SC, In:Quality, Soundstreak, and a handful of others not announced yet are already working on products that could be a workable replacement for ISDN. All have issues, but are a good deal closer to the finish line.

And 50k is a drop in the bucket. Good coders aren't cheap. You'll need a lot more than 50k to make a real run at it.... And your competition, especially Google, is much better capitalized, has significantly better technical resources, and much more experience. The challenge is not insurmountable, but I fear you underestimate the undertaking you propose.

Could it be done? Sure. Is it likely you'd win? Well.... No.

In the long run, my money's on Google, and Hangouts for Business. But, even Google's not there yet.

As Kafer so pointedly noted, none of these solutions matter, unless networks, major production houses, and studios choose to adopt them.... And that's not happening any time soon. For them, ISDN works, is secure, and costs very little compared to the bottom line. Change will come eventually, but not until there's a bulletproof solution, and that's still a way off.

Til then, I'm content to watch from the sidelines, keep my ear to the ground, and my nose to the wheel. I'll keep my dollar, thanx.
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Don Brookshire
"Wait.... They wanna PAY me for this?"

[mstaji]

@heyguido

Back in 2012 I was working for an advertising agency that had a number of subsidiaries. At one point one of those companies was having issues and for some reason my boss at the time thought that it wouldnt be a bad idea to chuck Mahmoud (that's me) on the problem.

So for 14 months I was acting general manager for a software solutions company in Egypt (before the coup in june of 2013) and I managed a group of 21 people.

The software solutions we developed (I merely managed and gave input on functionality and esthetics) were about 2000 times more complicated than what I am proposing and they didn't have pre exisiting open source versions of them. We built everything from scratch... in fact we rebuilt everything twice because the first manager that I replaced had let things go to crap.

So overall I know the general expenses related to the cost of software development in a 3rd world country ... I am also familiar with the development costs of coders in the US and Europe, India and China. We outsourced a module or two (regrettably we would have been able to do it for far less and with far less spaghetti code if we kept it inhouse) to the UK, India and a Chinese freelancer.

The cost was negligable... overall around 10K USD ... the programming for that was done in objective C for the ipad specifically... and any one of those modules would have been the same as the entire project that setting up the Audio Wormhole would entail.

The most important thing in the whole process is the Software Requirements Sheet which clearly outlined what you wanted out of the software. If the SRS was messed up then the software was messed up.

50K is a crap load of money in comparison to what I was talking about. Granted I would still have to go through the process of finding a developer (I can go into a bidding war in one of the freelance websites) or I can use the developers that I worked with in Egypt (outsourcing to Egypt would bring the cost down considerably).

I can also hand this over to a committee and they can decide what voiceover artists who contribute to this want to have in their own personal stand alone software that allows them to do what ISDN was doing for them .... for Free.
_________________
Mahmoud Taji
Personal website: http://www.mahmoudtaji.com
blog: http://www.voiceemporium.com
twitter: @mahmoudtaji

[Foog]

[Lance Blair]

George - yeah, I looked into Studio Mode already for Hangouts. It sounds terrific, but how on earth do you use it? I can't find anyway to get into it, and I'm a G+ user and there's no instructions online about it.

Two things that put me off of Studio Mode Hangouts:
1.) Everything auto-publishes to YouTube, so that's just a no-go for production.
2.) I don't trust Google to keep this (or any of their products). They sure like to mix things up.

However, I think Google is going to blow things wide open. If they make a Google Voice 2.0 or a more user-friendly High Quality Hangouts to generate demand for Google Fiber (a-ha! see where I'm going with this?) it's Google's game to lose.
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Skype: globalvoiceover
and now, http://lanceblairvo.com the blog is there now too!

[mstaji]

@Lance ... you know I too don't really trust Google much when it comes to the life expectancy of their more obscure projects. So far about 3 of the projects that I used to depend on for work go axed... it's kind of like your favorite show getting cancelled.

(R.I.P Eureka / Firefly / Stargate)
_________________
Mahmoud Taji
Personal website: http://www.mahmoudtaji.com
blog: http://www.voiceemporium.com
twitter: @mahmoudtaji

[Ed Fisher]

[Lee Gordon]

[mstaji]

Hey at least Wil Wheaton will have a say in the software. But knowing disasters are the norm at GD I'd go for a less spectacular contractor.


_________________
Mahmoud Taji
Personal website: http://www.mahmoudtaji.com
blog: http://www.voiceemporium.com
twitter: @mahmoudtaji

[chrisvoco]

Has anybody fiddled with Reaper's "Ninjam" doodad? I believe Ninjam used to be a standalone, but it is at this point a plugin within Reaper.

Its intended purpose is jam sessions with multiple other musicians, but it could probably be easily appropriated.

In order to eliminate issues with latency, it deliberately imposes additional latency - maybe a weird concept, but seems to work pretty well.

It uses (used) OGG Vorbis compression.
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Finally, Ford stops starting to say things and starts.

[Philip Banks]

Stop it!

Final Warning!

Don't you make me come back there.

[chrisvoco]

Mr. Banks, I thought I wasn't frightened of you anymore, but now I'm not sure.
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Finally, Ford stops starting to say things and starts.