subject: A Detailed And Unbiased Description Of The Ventrilo Voip System [print this page] Ventrilo servers are one of the most popular VoIP software options. Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) is a technology that allows voice communication to be transferred over the Internet rather than the normal public switched telephone network (PSTN). VoIP technologies convert analog voice audio into digital audio by using codecs. These can then be transferred over the IP network. The process is reversed at the other end of the line. Ventrilo have become one of the standards by which the VoIP industry measures itself.
Operation
Users of Ventrilo servers typically make use of computer microphones to communicate with each other. They have to download the software (known as the client) which then connects them to a server. The client is a freeware that can be installed on various operating systems including Windows, Mac OS X and Linux. Online gamers usually prefer Ventrilo servers because of its superior quality sound and low CPU usage. The user will normally have access to a server through licensed companies operating in 25 countries across the globe. These are called Ventrilo Hosting companies.
The new Ventrilo 3.0.0, released on 14 November 2007, provides even more revolutionary quality and ease of use. The user can now customize how his main window is displayed. For example, the title bar can be turned off and on; switch from icons to large buttons, depending on the amount of space you want the window to take in your desktop. These new ameliorations have considerably improved user-friendliness so that most features are available at the click of the mouse.
The free version of the server is limited to 8 simultaneous client connections (i.e. you can have 8 people connected to you at any one time). Beyond 8, the Pro version or license will need to be bought.
Features
Some of the features of the server include:
(i)Voice communication with multiple people
(ii)Cross channel communications
(iii)Private conversations between friends
(iv)Password protection during login and transmission of channels
(v)Many channel control options and filters
(vi)Text-to-speech (TTS) voice generation
(vii)Proper TTS is ensured by separation of phonetic spelling of user
(viii)Possibility of chatting online
(ix)Insertion of dynamic comments that all other users can see
(x)Special sound effects e.g. surround sound
(xi)Record and play back conversations and transmissions
(xii)Specified codecs determine the voice quality and bandwidth usage. This means that with Ventrilo servers, the users can decide on the voice quality they need or the bandwidth they can afford to allocate to VoIP. Bandwidth usage can be as low as 600 bytes/second and as high as 8000 bytes/second.
Requirements for using Ventrilo
The client is supported by Windows (9x NT 2000 and XP) and Macintosh Power PC OSX. For Windows, the client requires DirectX 8.1 or higher. The server is supported by Windows, Linux, FreeBSD, NetBSD, Solaris Sparc 64bit, Solaris i386 and Mac OSX.
A fairly low level of computer power is needed to run the server. However a soundcard that supports Full-Duplex sound playback and microphone recording, as well as recording multiple sound streams, is essential (old soundcards will not be capable of this).
