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Mumble – Open source, low latency, high quality voice chat software

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Re: Mumble – Open source, low latency, high quality voice chat software

#141

Post by imhoguy »

Cyph0n wrote: post #109
TeMPOraL wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This alone doesn't explain why couldn't they leave the "super node" infrastructure in, with an extra bit of code ensuring mobile users are never designated as "super nodes". This way, quality would remain the same for the desktop/laptop users, instead of being degraded for everyone.

Not to mention that supernodes, though fewer in number, could still help reduce latency for those on mobile.

The switch from crowdsourced supernodes was mostly about link quality with:

- asymetric links (ADSL)

- WiFi

- usage-based plans

- people shutting Skype down on varous occassions,

- suspended laptops,

- bandwidth competing applications (video).

I remember past Skype had lot of quality issues, sometimes connection was very choppy, dropped unexpectedly, or took long time to establish.

Re: Mumble – Open source, low latency, high quality voice chat software

#142

Post by gsich »

LinuxBender wrote: post #113
teirce wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Discord already has a subscription model (nitro). They tried to pivot themselves into a game store, but that appears to not have gone particularly well. Not too sure on the privacy front. I don't believe they sell any user data, yet.

Hopefully they won't provide chat data or metrics to others. If Discord were acquired or partnered with anyone shady, they are certainly in a position to Big-Data-AI (and other bs bing words) everyone. They brag about storing all messages. [1] [1] - https://blog.discordapp.com/how-discord-stores-billions-of-m...

Getting acquired is their business model.

Re: Mumble – Open source, low latency, high quality voice chat software

#143

Post by labmixz »

belorn wrote: post #56
dharmab wrote: post #3

Discord has pretty much completely eaten Mumble's market. Free servers and a way better chat system ate Mumble's use case. TeamSpeak is still used by milsim/flightsim communities because it support plugins which integrate the in-sim radios with the VoIP system. EDIT: Got Vent and TS mixed up

Discord merged the voice channels of Teamspeak/Ventrilo with the text chat system of Slack. Therefore what I have seen is people leaving both Slack and Ventrilo in order to put it all on Discord. As someone who managed a gaming guild since 2005, I have seen many iterations. In the beginning it was all Skype, then we switched to Ventrilo and PhpBB, then many went to FB for text, then to Teamspeak for voice, then to Sl…

Discord is definitely a great evolution above Ventrilo, TeamSpeak, and Mumble.

Though if you want to get old school, MPlayer did voice chat before it was "cool", way before 2005. If you remember what MPlayer is, you know you're already old.

Back then MPlayer was free, which is kind of where TeamSpeak/Ventrilo/Mumble fell off, either you had some technical know-how to host it yourself (and the bandwidth to do so properly) or you paid for hosted solutions. It was only a matter of time before a free solution came around and stole the user base with intelligent marketing, nice interface, and a decent product.

Re: Mumble – Open source, low latency, high quality voice chat software

#144

Post by sandov »

TomMarius wrote: post #54
rrdharan wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Surprised no one mentioned the documented reason: the VirnetX parent lawsuits, which were also why Apple had to stop using P2P in FaceTime. https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2013/04/after-200m-patent-se...

Apparently patents in this form need to be abolished ASAP. Human society can't afford anything like this standing in the way of widespread usage of such well known and well available technologies. Please, let's all go and short that patent troll.

IMO, all patents need to be abolished ASAP. They're a bad idea to begin with, and this case is just particularly ridiculous.

Don't hate the player, hate the game.

Re: Mumble – Open source, low latency, high quality voice chat software

#145

Post by radus »

alfg wrote: post #69

I use Discord now since most of my friends are on it, but I've always been a fan of Mumble (and murmur server) since it's high quality software and open source. I also made https://guildbit.com years ago for gamers that want to just quickly spin up a temporary server with their friends. I still operate it today since there's still a few users out there. I think it would be cool if someone were to create an open sourc…

Here's a mumble web client: https://github.com/Johni0702/mumble-web

Re: Mumble – Open source, low latency, high quality voice chat software

#146

Post by eeeeeeeeeeeee »

Mumble definitely works, and the voice quality is very good, exceptional maybe, but the user interface is atrocious.

Don’t expect non-technical users to be able to figure this client out.

I know Discord isn’t open, but it’s a lot easier to figure out by most people.

Re: Mumble – Open source, low latency, high quality voice chat software

#147

Post by Wowfunhappy »

imhoguy wrote: post #141
Cyph0n wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not to mention that supernodes, though fewer in number, could still help reduce latency for those on mobile.

The switch from crowdsourced supernodes was mostly about link quality with: - asymetric links (ADSL) - WiFi - usage-based plans - people shutting Skype down on varous occassions, - suspended laptops, - bandwidth competing applications (video). I remember past Skype had lot of quality issues, sometimes connection was very choppy, dropped unexpectedly, or took long time to establish.

I said this downthread, but I'd happily put up with those quality issues (and I remember them, they were real!) in return for the reduced latency.

Re: Mumble – Open source, low latency, high quality voice chat software

#148

Post by orliesaurus »

wlesieutre wrote: post #31
dharmab wrote: post #3

Discord has pretty much completely eaten Mumble's market. Free servers and a way better chat system ate Mumble's use case. TeamSpeak is still used by milsim/flightsim communities because it support plugins which integrate the in-sim radios with the VoIP system. EDIT: Got Vent and TS mixed up

Mumble is great when you don't want a persistent chat. I've been invited to like a million different discord groups from friend groups that overlap in various ways, and they always seem to be full of a bunch of people I don't know reposting memes off of reddit in the chat channels. All I wanted was a voice chat with the 5 people who I know and am hopping into Overwatch with. Mumble does that job better, and guzzles l…

Overwatch has voice in-built that is very good both for public games, parties and teams - why need Mumble at this point?

Re: Mumble – Open source, low latency, high quality voice chat software

#149

Post by orliesaurus »

teirce wrote: post #73
greymeister wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I refuse to use Discord because I don't know how or to whom they are going to sell my data yet. It's possible they go to a subscription model but I doubt it, it seems more likely they'll be acquired by one of the big data brokers at some point.

Discord already has a subscription model (nitro). They tried to pivot themselves into a game store, but that appears to not have gone particularly well. Not too sure on the privacy front. I don't believe they sell any user data, yet.

> but that appears to not have gone particularly well. source? numbers? leaks?

Re: Mumble – Open source, low latency, high quality voice chat software

#150

Post by zamalek »

dharmab wrote: post #3

Discord has pretty much completely eaten Mumble's market. Free servers and a way better chat system ate Mumble's use case. TeamSpeak is still used by milsim/flightsim communities because it support plugins which integrate the in-sim radios with the VoIP system. EDIT: Got Vent and TS mixed up

What Mumble did that was great was getting people to use certificates. I never actually checked the thumbprint of the certificate, but it was a big step forward. I think it could have succeeded with "minimal" changes:

* Have you ever tried to self-host a server, especially on your own Windows machine? Setting it up is a confusing mess, especially the documentation. I couldn't get DBus working the first time I attempted it, so I gave up and paid for TS. Would it have been so hard to include a Murmur configuration dialog in Mumble?

* Ice? Why couldn't a simple HTTP interface work? Just look at all this troubleshooting overhead: https://wiki.mumble.info/wiki/Ice

* UX/UI matters.

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