Ekiga audio codec questions

[Andre Robatino]

I and my father recently started using Ekiga to communicate.  Both of us
are using Fedora 9 with Ekiga 2.0.12 from the Fedora repo.  My machine
has a 2.53 GHz Celeron D CPU, his is a 1.1 GHz AMD Duron.  We started
out using the default setup, so both of us were using the wideband
SPEEX.  My audio sounded good to him, but his was severely broken up.
After trying several codecs, we settled on iLBC as the only codec which
allows his audio to be reasonably intelligible to me.

First, I had him switch the order of his top two codecs, so the first
was iLBC and the second was SPEEX wideband.  My own codecs were the
defaults.  If I called him, then SPEEX was used both incoming and
outgoing.  If he called me, then iLBC was used for both.  It doesn't
seem to make sense that which codecs get used depends on who calls who.
  Is there a reason for this, or is it just a bug?  Is there some way
for my outgoing audio to be SPEEX, and his outgoing audio to be iLBC, in
the same call?  So far I have never seen the incoming and outgoing
codecs in a given call be different.

Finally we decided that it was best for him to put his codecs back in
the original order, but to uncheck the SPEEX wideband.  This results in
iLBC being used in both directions, regardless of which of us originates
the call.

We tried using top to see how much CPU was being used with the various
codecs, in the hope of discovering the cause of his choppy audio.  The
SPEEX wideband and the iLBC each use up something around 60% of his CPU,
despite the fact that iLBC sounds much less choppy.  I was amazed that
processing audio would require this much.  Is this an expected amount
for a 1.1 GHz CPU, and could it be the cause of the choppy audio for SPEEX?

I know that Fedora 9 has a lot of sound-related issues, and that may
have something to do with it.  Unfortunately, I know next to nothing
about sound on Linux.


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[Yannick-GNU/Linux]

Hi,

Can you both try to disable Echo cancellation ?
(Edit->Preferences->Audio->Codecs)

Regards,
Yannick

Le mardi 01 juillet 2008 à 17:21 -0400, Andre Robatino a écrit :

> I and my father recently started using Ekiga to communicate.  Both of us
> are using Fedora 9 with Ekiga 2.0.12 from the Fedora repo.  My machine
> has a 2.53 GHz Celeron D CPU, his is a 1.1 GHz AMD Duron.  We started
> out using the default setup, so both of us were using the wideband
> SPEEX.  My audio sounded good to him, but his was severely broken up.
> After trying several codecs, we settled on iLBC as the only codec which
> allows his audio to be reasonably intelligible to me.
>
> First, I had him switch the order of his top two codecs, so the first
> was iLBC and the second was SPEEX wideband.  My own codecs were the
> defaults.  If I called him, then SPEEX was used both incoming and
> outgoing.  If he called me, then iLBC was used for both.  It doesn't
> seem to make sense that which codecs get used depends on who calls who.
>   Is there a reason for this, or is it just a bug?  Is there some way
> for my outgoing audio to be SPEEX, and his outgoing audio to be iLBC, in
> the same call?  So far I have never seen the incoming and outgoing
> codecs in a given call be different.
>
> Finally we decided that it was best for him to put his codecs back in
> the original order, but to uncheck the SPEEX wideband.  This results in
> iLBC being used in both directions, regardless of which of us originates
> the call.
>
> We tried using top to see how much CPU was being used with the various
> codecs, in the hope of discovering the cause of his choppy audio.  The
> SPEEX wideband and the iLBC each use up something around 60% of his CPU,
> despite the fact that iLBC sounds much less choppy.  I was amazed that
> processing audio would require this much.  Is this an expected amount
> for a 1.1 GHz CPU, and could it be the cause of the choppy audio for SPEEX?
>
> I know that Fedora 9 has a lot of sound-related issues, and that may
> have something to do with it.  Unfortunately, I know next to nothing
> about sound on Linux.
> _______________________________________________
> ekiga-list mailing list
> ekiga-list@...
> http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/ekiga-list

--
Me joindre en téléphonie IP / vidéoconférence ?
sip:yannick@...
Logiciel de VoIP Ekiga : http://www.ekiga.org
http://wiki.ekiga.org/index.php/Which_programs_work_with_Ekiga_%3F

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[Andre Robatino]

yannick wrote:
> Hi,
>
> Can you both try to disable Echo cancellation ?
> (Edit->Preferences->Audio->Codecs)
>
> Regards,
> Yannick

After doing this, we both found that the CPU usage was significantly
reduced, and SPEEX wideband is now usable, although when he speaks there
are occasional small gaps.  Neither of us noticed any negative effects
from disabling echo cancellation, but we are both using headsets, so
maybe it's unnecessary.  I noticed that at my end there were about 7%
lost packets, but no late packets, and the jitter buffer was about
300-400 ms.  At his end, he only saw about .1% lost packets and no late
packets, and his jitter buffer was less than 100 ms.  Is it normal for
there to be lost packets but no late packets?

Also, he tried the echo tests at sip:500@... and
sip:613@..., both before and after disabling echo
cancellation.  In either case, his audio breaks up at the ekiga site,
but not at the pulver site.



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