TechNote

Best practices for Voice Over IP (VoIP) audio

There are several factors for achieving the best audio experience using Voice Over IP (VoIP) in Breeze. First and foremost is using a suitable microphone or headset and getting optimum volume levels into Breeze.

Other considerations are optimizing acoustic isolation between microphone and speakers to avoid feedback that, when coupled with inherent internet latencies, results in echoes.

A headset is a good choice since the fixed microphone position affords the users any degree of movement and the earphones provide a great deal of acoustic isolation.

Generally speaking, a good quality microphone should be positioned close to the speaking source but not so close as to overload the microphone or positioned such that plosives affect the audio. A good headset microphone placement is at the corner of the mouth or tip of the nose.

When a Participant joins a Breeze Meeting, Meeting content is rendered in the regular Flash Player plug-in. This plug-in does not have any special audio enhancement functions. Once a user becomes a Breeze Presenter, they are prompted to download and install the Breeze Meeting Add-in. This is essentially the Flash Player with additional features such as screen sharing and enhanced audio (enhanced audio on Windows only). The enhanced audio in the Breeze Meeting Add-in features echo-cancellation and automatic microphone gain control.

All Breeze VoIP users, regardless of role, can benefit by installing the Meeting Add-in and using the Audio Wizard to set optimum audio levels. Breeze Meeting Presenters can direct Breeze users with a Breeze account to download and install theMeeting Add-in via Breeze Manager > Home > Getting Started > Downloads. Otherwise, Presenters can temporarily promote Participants to Presenter role where they will be prompted to install the Meeting Add-in.

Once installed, Meeting Add-in users should use the Audio Wizard to configure their individual microphone levels. This is especially important since unconfigured or improperly configured audio settings may result in too low or too high levels, spoken phrases being truncated due to incorrect silence levels, and excessive echoes due to incorrectly configured enhanced audio.

The Audio Wizard is fairly straightforward and walks users through each setting to determine optimum volume levels and background silence detection. For best results, all VoIP users are strongly recommended to do the following steps from within a Breeze Meeting:

1. Access the Audio Setup Wizard from the Meeting menu.
2. Click Next and follow the instructions on the screen.
3. Before clicking Finish on the last screen, click on Advanced Setting... to fine tune the settings. The settings below are recommended:
   • Check the Use Enhanced Audio checkbox.
   • Silence Level should be set to 10 or less.
   • Acoustic Echo Cancellation Mode should set to Full Duplex.
   • Check the Auto sense Acoustic Echo Cancellation mode checkbox.
   • Uncheck the Automatic Gain Control checkbox.

The Camera and Voice pod affords users the option of a Single Speaker or Multiple Speakers for broadcasts by one-to-many usage or many-to-many usages. The Push-to-talk button will minimize data traffic by sending audio data only when pushed (but be aware there are inherent delays so push a second or two before speaking to avoid the beginning of your phrase from being truncated).

Hosts can set the Meeting > Room Optimization to a suitable level and "downshift" to DSL (or even modem) if users are experiencing audio dropouts due to bandwidth constraints. Also, each user can individually set their own bandwidth appropriately for their connection.

Additional Information

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• LiveDocs: Using the Audio Setup wizard

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