Category: Zone BBS Suggestions and Feedback
Hello, I have a sort of double suggestion.
Firstly, I think that instead of using wave files, the voice mails should be converted to 96k, 22.05 khz mp3 files, which are much smaller, but higher quality, than waves. Also, I think that at least until Chris comes up with another way to retrieve voicemails without having to go through them all, all members should have the ability to go through their voice mails. I have 40 messages right now and going through them is bad enough. I can't imagine how the people with 150 messages feel.
I asked chris about this earlier last month and he said he was working on a way to retrieve them that would be something like who's where in the phone system. This still hasn't been done, and I am assuming he's trying to get the name tags back up and running. Meanwhile, I seriously do think everyone should have this option. it's jsut silly to have to call in and retrieve them. Also, sometimes I'm at the library, like now, where I don't have access to a phone. This is the only internet access I've got, and I'd really like to be able to retrieve voice mail for myself.
I would have to agree there. 150 messages, that's what I have. I have to rely on the mark as new option if I want to listen to a message again, because going through them probably takes about 10 minutes. I've even gone so far as to ask one of my friends if I could three-way call their code onto my line, record all my messages into their box and download them from the site in one huge wave file. The problem with that is, of course, the waves are horrible quality, even worse than the phone system. This is why I agree with daniel, mp3s are much much smaller, better quality, and if the phone system can convert audio profiles, why not voice mail messages?
yes agreed we all should be able to get messages through the computer.
I realize that there are some things that premium members have to have, but this is absolutely ridiculous.
The wave files are the very same thing that is played over the phone. Converting to mp3 would decrease the size but would not improve the quality.
I don't like it when people ask for premium features to be available for everyone. If everything is available for all then what is the reason to get premium? And i remember that when voicemail arrived only premiums could send voicemail and everyone could recieve one. But admin decided to allow everyone to send voicemails. I think people should be greatfull for that and not keep asking things. If one day admin decides to have only premium members to send voicemail again then you will realise what you had and you didn't appreshiate it.
i agree.....but i do only have about 2 messages. hmmm
MP3s better quality than wavs? That's about as laughable as this topic.
Depending on how they're encoded would depend on the sound quality.
Even if the quality wasn't going to be improved though, wouldn't it be better to use mp3 anyway?
They are smaller and it would take up less room as well as perhaps download faster.
I agree about the mp3s. ANd Chris, why, if the wavs are the same as over the phone, is the quality so much worse than that of audio profiles, which are in mp3s?
definitely would like to see these be able to be in mp3 also.
OK. As undiplomatic as this will be, I'm going to address a few points made here, giving you specifics as to why and what:
Daniel_X-ray, Point 1: An mp3 of the wave files generated from the voicemail system wouldn't really be a lot smaller than the wave files anyway. Sure, you'd get rid of some information so might gain a bit of compression benefit, but why bother? At the bit-rate and sampling rate that telephone audio is sent, there's really very little point -- you'd just be wasting server processor cycles.
Daniel_X-ray, Point 2: And while we're at it, lets give standard members customizable log-in messages, 2-minute audio profile time limits, quicknote history, invisibility mode, and, oh yeah, the master password to the site.
Simon4599 and brian33: Refer to the above statement. You wanna have your cake and eat it too, yes? If you want the feature badly enough, fork up the 25 bucks. That's 25 bucks a year, roughly $2.08 cents per month, about 6 and a half cents per day. If you can't scrounge that together, maybe you should be more concerned with other things than the Zone? After all, if we keep giving away features to standard members, what insentive will people have to go premium again? As it is, I still think voicemails should only be for premiums, but that's just me...
Post 10: The telephone uses a vastly lower codec for audio than computers do. If you've heard audio profiles done by phone, you'll already know that they can, and more often than not, do sound like crap when compared to an audio profile recorded with a microphone. The quality of the audio profile has very little to do with the file formats (aside from the compression algorithm which removes a lot more data than I'd like). Their quality is dependant on their source -- after all, you can't turn water from a well into oil, can you? Wouldn't logic preach that mp3's would be lower quality than a wave file?
Take the following into consideration: You have a wave file that's ten megabytes (10,485,760 bytes) in size. You compress that file into an mp3, yielding a file that's roughly 1 megabyte (1,048,576 bytes). Logic would suggest that quite a bit was forfeited and discarded in order to make something large into something small, yes? After all, if you have a tailor fix your shirt or dress to make it smaller, they're cutting away material, not adding to it. Wouldn't this imply that you'd be losing something in the process? I sure hope so. Ten megabyte file into one megabyte file = lower quality, not higher!
As a quick proof of concept, I present SingerOfSong's and voicedude's audio profiles. As you'll note, SingerOfSongs' audio profile sounds much better than voicedude's. They're both audio profiles, both compressed in the same exact manner. I also picked SingerOfSongs' audio profile because it doesn't have any effects to either enhance or otherwise modify his voice.
MP3's better than wave files in quality? NO!
Premium features for standard members? Bloody hell no!
Nurse, whose next for the operating table?
Kai
Very well said Kai. I agree with you.
Ifyou'd care to actually notice, I have premium now. Maybe you should check that before asking me to "fork up" the $25. And I think you missed a decimal in your mathematical equation.
No to both accounts, Simon. Your membership status holds no relevance to the argument at hand -- that is, the availability of certain features to standard-level members.
After all, you could still be a premium member lobbying for access to premium features for standard members.
And no. I'm not missing a single decimal in my equasion. Your ignorance of byte/kilobyte/megabyte values does not equate to any mistake on my behalf. There are 1024 bytes to one kilobyte, 1024 kilobytes to one megabyte. You'd roughly multiply that by 10. So where's my math wrong again?
But if you're being nick-picky because I've proven you wrong, let me just tell you that you've missed a space somewhere in your post. I leave it to you to figure out where.Kai
And If you didn't catch that purposeful error at the end of my last post, that was a poke at your mistake... a clue, if you will.
Kai
I did, actually.
Where you missed a decimal is in your per-month calculation of the price of premium memberships. Go see, and figure it out for yourself.Simon