[Ekiga-list] Ekiga-linux to Ekiga-win32: horrible, choppy, unintelligible sound

[Dieter Rogiest]

I tried using Ekiga-linux (compiled 6/3/07 on Mandriva Linux 2007) to 
communicate with my sister using Ekiga-win32 (2/3/07) but for the moment I 
have to give up. 
The video is not perfect but usable (both hers as mine) but the framerate is 
very low and Skype for Windows video quality is a few degrees better (in 
Skype I can actually see her mouth move in synchronicy with her audio).

The audio with ekiga is just horrible. I read somewhere that sip software has 
excellent audio but so far I haven't noticed it. I guess others must be 
satisfied with their audio because I can't find anyone else in this list 
complaining about it.

If I do an echo test to 500 at ekiga.net I can hear my own voice echoing back 
(with a strong echo effect): there my audio sounds normal.
When I try to communicate with my sister we both hear garbled, choppy, almost 
non-intelligible sound. Always having to ask "Could you repeat that?" just 
trying to understand the other side is very tiresome.
I tried two audio codecs: gsm and pcmu.
I noticed on my gkrellm display that transmitting goes up to +32 KB/s which is 
the maximum of my internet connection.
We suspended the video, so only audio is transmitted and received. That 
resulted in a little better audio where we could more or less understand each 
other but the quality was still not acceptable.

Skype for linux (only audio) has excellent sound (apart from 
some "wiuwiuwiuwiu" noise (I hope it is some interference from my fridge or 
bad onboard sound of my motherboard, next week I'm buying a new computer)).

For now my sister and I are using Skype for linux and when I want video I have 
to reboot into WinXP to use Skype for Windows.
Skype for Windows (audio and video) seems to transmit a lot less than Ekiga 
(does anyone know what video codec Skype uses?).

I'm curious if my sound problem with ekiga also exist when communicating with 
another ekiga-linux and not ekiga-win32.
Is there someone out there with ekiga-linux and webcam who I can contact with 
ekiga just to see whether my audio is bad when using ekiga-linux to 
ekiga-linux? It will only take a few minutes of your time.

Thank you,

Dieter