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Comment by youerbt | Hacker News Reader

> And, the big one drum roll, please... we will be integrating this into Element so you can have voice and video rooms, and hold group video calls inside the Element app natively over Matrix.

I'd love to replace my teamspeak server with this. Discord is tempting, but I'd rather host it myself.

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For what it's worth, Matrix / Element already have something like this with the built-in Jitsi integration in (some) clients. The UX isn't great right now in my opinion (which will hopefully change when this project gets merged into Element) but if all you want is rooms, text and voice, then you're already set with the current setup.

You can self-host a Jitsi instance and use it in Matrix rooms as an integration. Depending on your teamspeak setup you can enable guest access to your server, enable registration for server user accounts (or manually register it for specific members), or only let people with existing accounts from other servers join in (their own, matrix.org ones, you name it). You might also need to tweak the ACLs a bit, but other than that you'll have all the core features Teamspeak and friends provide.

I think the biggest difference between the existing Matrix group call system and what's been announced here today is the new UI/UX, and the fact that the native group call API and reference implementation are nearing completion. Both are great news, but don't necessarily add new user-facing features to the Matrix ecosystem.

Yes but the current UX for that is terrible. With the proposed MSC linked in the blog post, Matrix will additionally gain Teamspeak/Discord like voice channels [1].

With this we could finally have a proper Teamspeak/Mumble bridge for voice that gets properly represented on the Matrix side which is amazing :D

Also kinda funny that Teamspeak only recently started using Matrix for their global chat feature [2].

Maybe now after the gitter acquisition, Element should consider acquiring a certain voice-focused company ;)

[1] https://github.com/matrix-org/matrix-spec-proposals/blob/mat...

[2] https://community.teamspeak.com/t/teamspeak-5-beta-bug-repor...

The UX is more than terrible, it is basically unusable.

The jitsi stuff is bolted on, you join a link and your user name does not come with you.

No discoverablity. Does this channel already have a jitsi room attached, no way to know. I see a link to a jitsi room, is there anyone inside? No way to know.

Recommending this as a alternative to TeamSpeak, mumble, or discord today is a way to get people to try a horrible experience and then say Matrix sucks forever.

Only when this call stuff merges will Matrix start being viable for those communities.

TeamSpeak 5 actually uses Matrix under the hood, with a proprietary voice protocol and TeamSpeak-specific room version.

That's the exciting bit for me. I love Matrix, but video and voice being primarily "call" based is painful, when what I really want is a dynamic voice/video room that people can quickly and easily drop in and out of, like in Discord.

MSC3401 specifically provides for this UX, with the `m.intent` field used when you instantiate an `m.call` within a room (https://github.com/matrix-org/matrix-spec-proposals/blob/mat...):

* `m.intent` to describe the intended UX for handling the call. One of:

1. `m.ring` if the call is meant to cause the room participants devices to ring (e.g. 1:1 call or group call)

2. `m.prompt` is the call should be presented as a conference call which users in the room are prompted to connect to

3. `m.room` if the call should be presented as a voice/video channel in which the user is immediately immersed on selecting the room.

Element Call implements `m.room` effectively (in that you get slung directly into the call once you click on the link). Once we integrate this into Element itself, then the plan is to support all three different intent types: `m.ring` for "group calls", `m.prompt` for "conferences" and `m.room` for discord-style voice/video rooms.

So will the room have a setting to make a voice video only room, a mixed room or a chat only room?

I assume m.ring would not be needed if its a something like a Teamspeak room.

It wouldn't be a setting; the intent would be set based on how you initiated the call. If you hit a big 'call Alice and Bob!' button you'd get a call which rings them both; if you hit a 'start a conference' you'd get a Teams/Zoom-style conference; if you hit 'create a voice/video room' button you'd get a Discord-style voice/video room.

(N.B. we might not bother with the group-calling option in Element; haven't decided yet - but Matrix needs to support it for folks who want those semantics :)

Thanks for the extra info. I'm really looking forward to the fruition of this, and will happily be trying out this current Element Call beta quite soon.

you can choose one of the three, and if you choose option 3, the room will become a voice video only room (this is how I understand it).

So m.ring existing isn't a problem.

How it is exposed in the UI, is a completely different thing, although I don't think it would be impossible to make a button that creates a room with a m.room call aka voice/video room

Mumble works great for me in the meantime

Mumble doesn't really work on mobile making it not usable for most users

I use it via Mumla occasionally on Android. Works fine?

I've used plumble on android many times on 5g for multi hour drives with minimal issues as recently as a few months ago.

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