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Comment by IvyMike | Hacker News Reader

So this is not my industry, but it's interesting to think about the requirements of a studio environment. I was recently handed a card by someone who did voiceover work, and he was "The ISDN guy" or something.

I assumed that ISDN died in like 1996, but it turns out it's still considered vital for some remote voice over work. http://www.alisocreek.net/vo-articles/ISDN-for-voice-over.ht...

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People also use SourceConnect as a way to do studio-to-studio sessions. Works very well in the studio where I set it up. Sessions to Portland, Chicago, Germany, etc all go off without a hitch. http://source-elements.com/source-connect/

You can use an ISDN bridge service to be able to talk to those studios that are still on ISDN and that works well, as well.

So, this sounds like a decent thing to also have available as a service. That way clients can be on SourceConnect pure, ISDN over a bridge, or Skype TX.

Skype is used currently sometimes if the talent is local but the producers are remote. Allows them to "be in the room". But Skype TX sounds like a decent solution for collaborating between studios.

We're using ISDN for studio linkups in between radio stations, and for remote location -> studio connections. Would love to use Skype in it's place, major barrier is lack of fine-tuned control over gain, disabling AGC, etc. Video broadcast does seem to be the focus here, but Skype could be incredibly useful in radio broadcasting too.

I think the radio industry would definitely pay for an advanced software client, especially considering so many potential guests have Skype setup at home. Having control over guests gain and more detailed metering in the client would be brilliant.

Can you educate a know-nothing what 'gain' is in this context?

Well I'm likely using the wrong technical term, but it's the one most often used in my industry (in my experience). I'm referring to adjusting the original strength of the signal. That is, the signal level at the point it enters the audio mixer of the computer. I'd love to be able to control how that signal level is amplified, or at least make it easy for guests to manually.

I'm not great at explaining but if you search for 'gain in an audio context' I'm certain there'll be better explainers!

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