On 4/1/2010 9:57 PM, George Henry wrote: > I suppose I should clarify: I don't do D-STAR, either. Moral objection to > their use of a proprietary codec.
You're going to be a while on that soap box. CODECs are almost literally the only way to make any money in the audio streaming, video streaming, and related technology worlds these days... mixed with Patents, you won't see any high-quality free CODECs that can properly encode voice at 4800 bps any time soon. DVSI has ALL of that market locked up until someone hires a pile of PhD's in math and goes after them. And even then, they'd have to make a significant impact on bandwidth utilized or voice quality over either AMBE/AMBE2, or IMBE... to have a chance of dislodging the first player to market... the only player to be written into multiple standards (P25, D-STAR, even the TDMA-based things from Kenwood/Icom... all using DVSI chipsets.) Brilliant of them really... heavily patent-encumbered CODEC, super-high price on using the CODEC in software, sell a $20 (in low-quantity, slightly cheaper in high-quanity) chipset, in a market as small as 2-way radio... they're making a bloody killing. I'd love to know what the development costs of the CODECs were... to see just how lucrative their lock on the market(s) is. But anyway... good luck finding a commercial product that doesn't use their chipset anytime soon. The next CODEC chipset maker is going to be an "also-ran" forever, unless their mathematicians and algorithms are uber-brilliant. Nate WY0X
