Teamspeak/ventrillo question

[CelticHound]

I'm just finishing up an online class (on music and healing) where we've had weekly conference calls. There are seven students in the class and we've all expressed a wish to be able to get together and talk again.

I was thinking that teamspeak might be a reasonable way to do this.

Since at least a couple people in RB have set up servers, I was hoping to get the scoop on what to do. Should we use teamspeak or look at other options? Do I need to set up a server, or can we create a channel on a public server?

Thanks,

-- CH

[Zande]

If you have a Ventrilo/Teamspeak I have both just shoot a PM or a reply if i'm liable. Thanks!

[Lurker Wyrm]

You can set up a free private server for TS or vent using one of your computers as the host. With TS, you can have up to 100 users (there are other restrictions but I don't remember them) and Vent will allow up to 8 people. The deciding factor is really just what you're more comfortable with (since you said there are 7 of you wanting to do this). TS is more user friendly to the novice while a lot of people (myself included) say Vent has better voice quality.

In order to set up a server on your home comp, you need to download the server packages from the sites (TS and Vent) and set them up following the instructions provided.

[Amy]

You may also want to check out Skype . It's a lot more resource-intensive than TS, which makes it not so great for gaming. But the voice quality is amazing - much better than your standard telephone - and it's very simple to set up and use. Seems with TS there were always issues with getting everybody able to hear one another, greatly varying levels of voices, echoes, line noise -- usually about 15 minutes a session was messing about with "can you hear me now?" It was ok for the kind of brief communciation and jokes that happen during a game when you're focussed on something else anyway.

I see from their help pages, "With Skype, you and 4 other people can take part in a conference call. If you use an Intel Core 2 Duo processor then a total of 10 people, including you, can join your conference call. On Skype 2.6 beta version, 10 way is supported on all CPU platforms." Not sure if that means the originator has to have a new zippy computer, or if all 10 do...