[Iaxclient-devel] some updates, and Ideas for contributions..

[Steve K. <st...@st...>]

1) (most relevant): put iax call processing (including audio) into a
separate thread.  This helps the most when you do things that block the
GUI thread, like resizing the window (Win32 only?).  And it seems to
also help the Mac a bit(*)

(*) The volume meters, implemented with progress bars via wxwindows on
the mac, eat a lot of CPU for their animation.  Not that it doesn't look
good.  I think that this caused some skips on the Mac.

2) Fixed the DTMF buttons that I broke sometime today or last night.

3) Fixed PTT a bit.  (looking for feedback on how this works).

Also, due to a byproduct of the way I did things, if you enable then
disable PTT, you'll also be enabling silence detection/suppression. 
This will make the client not spit out any audio frames until the input
audio level reaches -40 DB.  

There's been a lot of interest here on the list and on IRC from a
growing community.  That's cool.  People asked what they can help with,
so here's some ideas for adventurous souls:


1) IAX2:  You can build it via my Makefiles by setting IAXVER=2 at the
top of the  
               library Makefile, or building the library by running
"make IAXVER=2".  It 
               doesn't work quite right, though, so if someone could try
and figure that one 
               out, it would be good.  Once it's working, IAX2 should
offer us a bunch of 
               quality improvements, especially over the internet.

2) Registration:  People out there want this, and it will make the
apps/library more     
               useful to the community.  Shouldn't be too hard, but will
need to be a bit     
               careful about keeping track of calls, sessions, peers,
etc.

3) A maintainer for VC++ Makefiles and/or .dsw files.  I don't know this
stuff, and I 
              don't like tools you need your mouse for.  But, if it
helps people get more 
              involved, I'm all for keeping a current .dsw/dsp or
whatever file in CVS, one 
              for each of the Makefiles, I guess (lib, testcall, wx).

4) Exposing Audio Settings:  Make controls (library functions and GUI)
for enumerating and choosing audio input/output devices.  This may
require either moving to the standard portaudio callback interface, or
hacking pablio to allow you to choose particular devices.  Also, expose
setting the input and output "levels".  It's probably best to allow them
to change this while the app is running, so you'll need to close/re-open
the audio device, etc.

5) MacOSX Mono audio problem:  Currently MacOSX audio comes only out of
the left channel.  Seems like a portaudio problem to track down.

6) silence detection / dynamic range compression:  Figure out good
values or algorithms to make the client automatically (a) not send any
packets when there's no speech, (b) put out good consistent volume when
there is speech, even if people don't have consistent
microphone/soundcard settings, use laptop microphones or nice headsets.

7) Additional codec support:  I'd start with uLaw, to make some
#iaxclient user happy, but also because it's pretty easy to implement,
then also try iLBC and/or Speex.  Probably want one way for the user to
choose their preferred codec.

Hmm, that's a bunch of stuff :)

If anyone wants to step up for this stuff, let the list know, so we all
don't duplicate each other's work.


Happy IAX clienting!

-SteveK





-- 
  Steve Kann - Chief Engineer - 520 8th Ave #2300 NY 10018 -  (212) 533-1775
                HorizonLive.com - collaborate . interact . learn
   "The box said 'Requires Windows 95, NT, or better,' so I installed Linux."