At 12:27 AM 6/8/2010, you wrote: >Reduce the $$$ barrier? The D-Star chip costs about $25. No one is >going to be able to manufacture an open source vocoder chip for less >than that.
For radio users, there would be no $$$ advantage. Codec2, when packaged for inclusion into a radio would probably cost almost the same as AMBE (you'd be paying for someone to package it into a chip). For PC users, there would be a significant cost advantage, because a $200 DV Dongle would no longer be needed. >What WOULD significantly lower the price is competition. Encourage >more manufacturers to market D-Star rigs and you'll see the price drop. Agreed. >I'm not sure that this project has any future, but two codecs will >probably destroy D-Star, not make it more popular. I think the new codec will have its place in non D-STAR DV systems, such as HF digital, which is in need of a decent low speed codec that can be incorporated into PC based software, but the developers will need to shoot for 1200 bps or lower (the lower, the better). 73 de VK3JED / VK3IRL http://vkradio.com
