This is very, very good news, and it may turn out to be a very big deal. It will be fun to hear reports from the early adopters. There aren't many people who can write this kind of code -- if you like where Dave is headed, you may want to donate to his CODEC2 effort that's referred to in the link below.
Ever since we all discovered that MELP was not legally available, we've all been waiting for something good that's open source. CODEC2 may allow a narrow enough bandwidth for widespread use on HF, and it may provide an alternative for VHF/UHF digital voice in the future. While I don't begrudge D-Star's use of the $25 AMBE proprietary codec on a chip, that approach prevents the kind of experimentation that hams are famous for. A software only codec would be very welcome as the future unfolds.... Jim - K6JM ----- Original Message ----- From: Tony To: digitalradio@yahoogroups.com Sent: Thursday, August 26, 2010 12:24 AM Subject: [digitalradio] Digital Voice News - VK5DGR's Open Source Codec All, Dave Rowe, VK5DGR, has just released an open source speech codec that could potentially be used in such digital voice applications as FDMDV and WinDRM. Dave says that his new CODEC2 needs work, but the speech quality of the Alpha release is pretty good. He has a few audio samples of CODEC2 and the proprietary codec MELP (for comparison) on his website: http://www.rowetel.com/blog/?page_id=452 For more information, visit Dave's main site at http://www.rowetel.com/blog/ Tony -K2MO
