IVM/OGM -- horrible sound quality

[xphoe]

I purchased IVM and I tried it with 2 different modems.

 

When someone calls and IVM answers it plays the standard greeting..it sounds HORRIBLE..the quality is bad.. I tried testing by adding some MP3 songs but it's still the same quality.

 

Does anyone have any suggestions?

[pythonpoole]

Please provide more information about what hardware and/or VoIP service you are using with IVM.

 

When using analogue telephony interfaces, the quality of the call is highly dependent on the voice modem or telephony board you have purchased. The quality can range considerably depending on the brand and overall build quality. For voice modems, some have been known to produce unacceptable quality like you descibe while others have been known to produce the high quality call you might expect from picking up your traditional wireline telephone. Telephony boards typically provide much higher quality calls to IVM, and they are trusted for use in professional environments. If you want to still interface your analogue line with IVM, I suggest you look into purchasing a higher quality voice modem (approximately $35 - $50) or a professional telephony board (often in excess of $200 however).

 

If you are using VoIP lines with IVM, quality may be reduced due to several factors including:

- The speed/bandwidth of the connection

- Whether the router on your network provides Quality of Service (QoS) features to prioritize VoIP communications over other "less important" network traffic

- The distance between you and the VoIP provider's server

- The codec that is being used / the quality level that has been set in IVM (contrary to what you may believe, the quality setting should be set to 'low' to improve call quality in environments where there is a low bandwidth/slower internet connection available. The high quality setting is only effective if the internet connection is able to handle streaming of excessively large data packets without disruption

- Whether the firewall has been set-up to forward the required VoIP ports and allow for a free flow of VoIP packets through the router (not forwarding the ports will cause delays, break-ups in sound, and possible total loss of communication

and more factors

[xphoe]

Please provide more information about what hardware and/or VoIP service you are using with IVM.

 

When using analogue telephony interfaces, the quality of the call is highly dependent on the voice modem or telephony board you have purchased. The quality can range considerably depending on the brand and overall build quality. For voice modems, some have been known to produce unacceptable quality like you descibe while others have been known to produce the high quality call you might expect from picking up your traditional wireline telephone. Telephony boards typically provide much higher quality calls to IVM, and they are trusted for use in professional environments. If you want to still interface your analogue line with IVM, I suggest you look into purchasing a higher quality voice modem (approximately $35 - $50) or a professional telephony board (often in excess of $200 however).

 

If you are using VoIP lines with IVM, quality may be reduced due to several factors including:

- The speed/bandwidth of the connection

- Whether the router on your network provides Quality of Service (QoS) features to prioritize VoIP communications over other "less important" network traffic

- The distance between you and the VoIP provider's server

- The codec that is being used / the quality level that has been set in IVM (contrary to what you may believe, the quality setting should be set to 'low' to improve call quality in environments where there is a low bandwidth/slower internet connection available. The high quality setting is only effective if the internet connection is able to handle streaming of excessively large data packets without disruption

- Whether the firewall has been set-up to forward the required VoIP ports and allow for a free flow of VoIP packets through the router (not forwarding the ports will cause delays, break-ups in sound, and possible total loss of communication

and more factors

 

 

 

Thank for the reply, I'm not using VOIP rather traditional phone. As for the modem I first tried a cheap $10 modem..then I purchase a MutliTech ZBA modem was quite expensive for a modem. (I'm in canada and couldn't find telephony boards). And the sound is the same. I tried it with 2 different computers also, same issue? Do you need a specific sound card? or that shouldnt matter?

 

thanks

[pythonpoole]

I suggest you try and download and install the latest drivers for the modem from the manufacturer's website and see if you continue to have the same problem.

 

Here is the list of voice modems NCH recommends: http://nch.com.au/kb/10063.html

 

Note that before purchasing a modem for use with IVM it must be TAPI compliant and have "Voice" functionality.

[drlava]

I think the sound quality issue goes deeper than just choosing the right modem. Voice modems support a few different voice encoding qualities from a few bits 4kHz to 16 bit 8/16 kHz. The modem I have, a Multimodem, supports several different encoding qualities including 4-bit 'rockwell' encoding and 8 bit PCM encoding.

 

The problem is, IVM uses the lowest quality voice encoding this modem has which happens to be default and sounds bad. To test, I installed 'voice modem tester' and PC 2 Answering machine to compare sound quality. These programs use the modem voice mode at the higher datarate/quality and the outgoing and incoming recordings sound natural, verses noisy and mechanical sound through IVM. Also, the data lights blink faster with these other tools as the outgoing buffer is refreshed more often due to the higher datarate of the higher quality outgoing voice stream.

 

So far I have not seen an option in IVM to choose the voice modem CODEC. I think this option would vastly improve its quality with a number of modems available.

[SabinVI]

Has anyone figured out a fix for this? I just bought the software for $350 and the newest PCI-E Multitech modem for $150. It is all set up on Windows 7 32-bit connected to a traditional analog telephone line. Sound quality is horrible when someone calls, very scratchy and fuzzy.

 

Is there a solution? Is it true that IVM uses the lowest quality encoding the modem supports and cannot be changed? I purposefully bought a $150 modem from Multitech because it was supposed be an extrememly high quality, if not the best voice modem on the market today.

 

Please someone help if you can. Thank you very much in advance!

[drlava]

Has anyone figured out a fix for this? I just bought the software for $350 and the newest PCI-E Multitech modem for $150. It is all set up on Windows 7 32-bit connected to a traditional analog telephone line. Sound quality is horrible when someone calls, very scratchy and fuzzy.

 

Is there a solution? Is it true that IVM uses the lowest quality encoding the modem supports and cannot be changed? I purposefully bought a $150 modem from Multitech because it was supposed be an extrememly high quality, if not the best voice modem on the market today.

 

Please someone help if you can. Thank you very much in advance!

 

try the voice modem tester link I have above and see if it sounds better.

[SabinVI]

try the voice modem tester link I have above and see if it sounds better.

 

I actually already had that software installed to check out the modem's capabilities. The voice modem tester reports that everything works great. It sounds great too.

 

It reports:

 

Play\Rec (16bit 8Khz mono) SUPPORTED

 

But it doesn't give information about how many different formats it supports.

 

I can't believe I am having this issue with such a good modem. Every other aspect of the software is so great! If I but a cheaper modem will I have better results?

[SabinVI]

Well, IVM official forum support is a joke. Thank you to the users though. You would think with such great software there would be a little more interaction from the developers. I do not think I should have to purcahse support just to get a basic feature working in the software, but that's just my opinion.

 

For anyone else that reads this, I tried a couple other voice modems without good results. I finally broke down at bought the Way2Call Lite (www.way2call.com). Although more expensive than a voice modem, it is cheaper than a telephony board, and it works GREAT!

 

I have only used it for a couple days now, but here are my results:

 

WINDOWS 7 32-BIT WITH IVM 5.02 & WAY2CALL LITE:

 

Sound quality: Excellent

Tone detection: Excellent and Fast

Compatibility: No problems yet except when I enabled End of Call Tone Detection (I am on an analog phone line through a cable modem) it crashes.

End of Call Detection: Only software based works on my system, and is hit and miss. Seems better with landlines than cell phones.

Call Transfers: Still setting this up but seems to work fine.

 

Hope this info will help some people!