Yesterday I used my new iPad Air to talk to some friends in London using Skype, and I tried playing the piano to them. They told me the audio quality was good and it sounded as if I was in the room with them. This prompted me to find out what improvements have been made to Skype, since every few weeks there is a new update. It turns out that they have improved the codec considerably and now use a new one called Opus (the original one was called SILK). A codec is a software program that processes the audio into a digital bit stream or converts the bit stream back into audio. The new codec has a wider bandwidth, up to 22 kHz apparently, which is more than adequate for music and is less subject to dropouts and interruptions. I tried playing the piano on a Skype test call (Echo123) and the quality was noticeably better than I have heard in the past. This makes the situation far better for those who teach the piano via Skype, and playing through a recital to a listener in another part of the world will now be a better experience. To obtain the best possible quality, I guess an external microphone and loudspeakers instead of the internal ones are best. A high speed internet connection, and a fast processor is also necessary and this is taken for granted for most systems. Here is a video of an interview with the engineer who developed the Opus codec. It is rather technical though: https://youtube/watch?v=8tn-UbRl2ZA
Posted on: Sun, 02 Nov 2014 16:08:34 +0000