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Doublereed Archive - Posting 000097.txt from 2007/03

From: "Mark Charette" <charette@-----.org>
Subj: Re: [DR-L] Skype and double reeds
Date: Thu, 15 Mar 2007 15:26:13 -0400

For rehearsals the most important thing to watch out for is something
called "latency" - the delay in getting information from point a to point
b. The delay in having a long distance phone call is noticeable but
bearable. It might not be bearable in a rehearsal situation.

Programs such as Skype guarantee a Quality of Service latency figure
(which is one of the reasons you pay a fee), but freebie progams such as
Messenger don't. Even when you pay, it might not be "good enough" based on
the physical properties of the network. The speed of transmission sets a
theoretical limit which is never attained in practice (routers, switches,
cable/fiber ends, transceivers, et al. get in the way of the theoretical
limits).

But it's surely worth a shot.

FYI:

Woodwind.Org has a direct connection to the Internet. It takes about 15ms
to get a signal from Detroit to Chicago (.015 secs, 2 hops) and about 71ms
(.071 secs, 5 hops) to get a signal to Seattle. This is staying on the
same vendor network. Using the rule of thumb for sound propagation of
3ms/meter, we can see that if I were rehearing with someone in Chicago it
would be as if we were 5 meters apart (two ends of an average room), but
if I were rehearsing with someone in Seattle it would be as if we were
about 24 meters apart - I think the timing might be a discernable amount
off by then.

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