Voice in OpenSim with Skype
The folks over at ReactionGrid show their innovative colors again with a powerful but simple idea: activate Skype from within OpenSim to meet the need for voice.
There is testing to be completed and documents to be written up, but the mere idea of leveraging the Skype API, perhaps as simple as a Skype URI wins my personal innovation of the day award. Although Skype is closed, most already have Skype installed for voice or should, it really is the standard even if it is commercial and runs on Windows, Mac, and Linux.
From a bit of experimentation and some tweets, this has opened into a conversation about pluggable voice solutions and APIs. I look forward to following the discussion they have started about voice in OpenSim and invite you to do the same. The ReactionGrid folks promise to post something official to the opensim mailing list when ready.
Just goes to show that innovation does not have to be complicated or technically involved, it just has to meet a real need.
[By the way, this whole thing came about from a few tweets. If you are not using Twitter start today.]
February 11, 2009 at 10:44 am
YAY! It’s about time!! YAY!!!
February 11, 2009 at 2:43 pm
I was just in a conference held in OpenSim with about 20 people, we used Skype for the audio. It generally worked well, however there were problems with Skype crashing for a lot of people. It seems that it can’t handle scaling as well as opensim.
February 12, 2009 at 7:52 pm
That’s too bad. I suppose I never thought of using for more than 10. I personally think the age of large conferences is giving way to several smaller working groups as the read/write web and collaboration trump broadcast forms of communication.
February 13, 2009 at 11:44 pm
For the record, Skype support was added to the realXtend variant of Opensim in version 0.31 (Sep 2008). Skype support augmented the existing SL-compatible voice support in realXtend.
I was in the same meeting as Adam @ Genkii. The drop-outs were frustrating, and having to manage Skype connections outside of the viewer is really annoying. I hope that maximum effort is put into integrating voice controls into the viewer UI.
February 13, 2009 at 11:51 pm
Just for the record also (wink), Skype capability has been part of the Openlife viewer for some time now. I don’t use it, but others have.
February 14, 2009 at 5:01 am
And what about the already existing smooth asterisk integration, available in the forge? Its all there!
February 14, 2009 at 9:29 am
Happy to hear about all the voice support. So why didn’t one of the best grids out there use it? I personally prefer to use Skype since it is already something I use daily although going out to use it from the viewer is problematic and I have not yet tried the new attempt. The dropouts would be frustrating no matter what the technology supporting it.
I suppose the biggest thing personally I would like to see, and that many expressed, would be modularity in voice integration allowing the sim owners and grid managers to select their preferred voice implemenation. This increases competition and promotes the best solution in the long term.
As for realXtend and Openlife, I applaud your efforts to get it in your proprietary viewers but that matter little to those interested in broader adoption and compatibility. I cannot recommend closed-systems for the OpenSim solutions themselves in good faith.
OpenLife viewer source, including any voice integration, is unavailable to my knowledge (illegally so based on violated GPL).
RealXtend, like the Netscape of its era, has chosen to go its own way ignoring emerging standards such as the HyperGrid and adding other admittedly nice features that render the worlds of anyone using them incompatible with OpenSim.
Asterisk integration I have never seen working and so cannot comment.
In short, we need modular voice integration capability so these solutions can tie in and the world owers can chose. And integrating it should be pretty simple. I don’t know if the Skype solution will end up that way, but it would be nice. I am just another avatar here. I don’t much care for the solutions that win so long as one emerges eventually and I think I echo the feelings of other simple users.
February 17, 2009 at 10:38 am
We use asterisk based voicechat with OpenSimulator and are really happy with that. It is the best open source standard for voip and can connect to nearly every other system.
There is no need to use skype INSIDE OpenSimulator, it better to just connect it with asterisk and integrate it that way. The asterisk based OpenSimulator region conference works seemless together with the skype conference.
Ever made a call from a cellphone into your favorite region to help someone there? Our staff did!
Ever called a team member in real life from within your favorite virtual place? I do regularly.
As I said … it’s all there!
February 17, 2009 at 4:32 pm
[...] voice in this discussion of which system & implementation of it to choose, comes from Mo Hax: “I suppose the biggest thing personally I would like to see, and that many expressed, would [...]
February 19, 2009 at 5:14 pm
Here are some more details on Skype in OpenSim posted by the people doing it.