Any tips for better "Skype" performance?

[Soccer Shout]

I do a daily podcast along with a mate who is 300 miles away.

We used to do double-enders but this took up too much time (did I mention we do this daily?) and had the occasional catastrophic failure resulting in lost shows.

So now we Skype and use PrettyMay to record. We'll happily take the hit in terms of quality for the sake of reduced production time.

We occasionally get very bad Skype experiences though. Last night the call kept dropping. We also get 'stuttering' and delays, to a greater or lesser degree.

My questions:

1) Does anyone know what causes the variability in Skype performance?

2) Would moving the recording off the PC and onto an outboard recorder be effective? If yes, care to recommend a cheap solution?

3) Would a service like Vonage result in better quality? Or is Vonage more like the quality of a regular phone?

Thanks....

[memizex]

Contact your ISP, see if you can increase your Bandwidth to get a better quality out of your SKYPE. The better BOTH of your connections, the less drops and issues you have with popping.

Could try and connect a second PC to record your conversations on skype. Depending on your setup it could be difficult. This could act as a offboard recorder. You could also use a Marantz, Maudio, or a sony Recorder to record the conversation like you would on the secondary pc. This makes it easy to archive and record on the go or onsite if your doing live interviews and such. I don't reccomend a Sony recorder though, they tend to spiraticly loose recordings, i know...i lost 5 hours of podcasts i never got to publish.

I hope that gives you some ideas from my view.

[Cali]

Also, if you're connected wirelessly, try plugging in your ethernet cable while recording. You should be able to get a more stable connection.

[X Pat Radio]

I heard this from Leo and Steve on Security Now. Pick which ports Skype uses yourself, then port forward them on at least one of the machines. This provides a more direct connection, rather than using the Skype servers.

I hope I got that right.

[Soccer Shout]

I heard of that tip, X-Pat. I just don't know how to implement it right now, but I'll check it out.

Thanks for all the replies.

[EclecticMix]

I've had considerably better performance going Skype-Skype than Skype-Phone, if you have a choice. I also shut down every program and service not necessary during the call.

If anyone has a link concerning the port forwarding then I'd appreciate it.

Cheers -

george

[paulyb]

might I suggest two plastic cups and a 300 mile long ball of string? That's what we use in the forest. It's all right until a bird lands on it.

[Preston Buttons]

The Word Whore and I have found that the quality of the skype feed starts off a little screwy but then evens out. Occasionally we have had to reconnect in the middle of a show, but that has not been the rule.

As far as recording: Running the signal through a board from our skype PC into the recording Mac, I have found that I can get a really good sound by adding some EQ and compression.

Note: Living as a highwayman in Sherwood Forest, Pauly B has little experience with telephone technology. As we all know, tin cans perform much better than plastic cups.

[paulyb]

yeah but the tourists don't throw cans away, Preston - and we like to recycle. I was going to mention you to Phil but figured you'd show up anyway, you tiny-handed King Of Skype!

[randym]

In addition to my podcast, I produce an on-air radio show---4 nights a week--- between myself in PA and my co-host in Idaho using Skype-Skype. I tested a half dozen recording packages for the task including Freecorder, Total Recorder and a Skype plugin called Pamela and experienced many of the same problems you cited.

I now use a mixer splitting the Skype call to separate channels in the stereo through the mixer to an outboard recorder. I also use a dedicated USB soundcard for Skype and a second internal card for other audio materials such as bumpers, commercials and audio sourced materials.

Two things worth noting: Skype introduces enormous overhead onto the processor---so any software recording solution to hard disk on the same computer competes with Skype for system resources. Skype does seem to inroduce certain "latency" issues to the audio chainand occassionally will echo if throughput from a soundcard is too high. I run a flat meter at about -12 dB into the recorder.

These shows are done "live" end to end with all breeaks and bumpers in real time. After downloading the audio I run a hard limiting filter and normalize to -3dB. Listener comments after we started doing shows with this method were unanimously favcrable and we are now getting an FM quality sound.

I use a a Sony minidisc recorder for this show---the sound is perfect: 441,000 Hz, 32 bit sound. The downside is re-recording back to HD (I budget the time to doi this in post-production). The recorder was cheap---$30 on Ebay. A second computer could also work. I tested using a second PC on my home network conferenced into the call and recording to that computer---no problem, as that computer was muted and only "listened" and recorded.

Randy Maugans
http://www.surfingthechaos.com



I do a daily podcast along with a mate who is 300 miles away.

We used to do double-enders but this took up too much time (did I mention we do this daily?) and had the occasional catastrophic failure resulting in lost shows.

So now we Skype and use PrettyMay to record. We'll happily take the hit in terms of quality for the sake of reduced production time.

We occasionally get very bad Skype experiences though. Last night the call kept dropping. We also get 'stuttering' and delays, to a greater or lesser degree.

My questions:

1) Does anyone know what causes the variability in Skype performance?

2) Would moving the recording off the PC and onto an outboard recorder be effective? If yes, care to recommend a cheap solution?

3) Would a service like Vonage result in better quality? Or is Vonage more like the quality of a regular phone?

Thanks....

[Soccer Shout]

Thanks for the replies.

Upgrading Skype to the latest version (duh!) helped a lot - my cpu is at 50-70% now instead of locked at 100%. No dropped calls last night.

I'm still going to grab a mixer and MP3 recorder though.

[parkylondon]

Hi Phil

First post over here at PCA so hope I don't break any rules!

May I suggest you have a look at PAMELA? The version I have (Pro, I think) allows you to record your audio stream and the other side as seperate WAV files. This is important as it allows you to match the volume/gain levels really easily.

Hope this adds to the help already received.

[Soccer Shout]

Thanks Parky. This has been the nudge to get me to buy the gear I need to record outside of the PC. So goodbye PrettyMay, Pamela, HotRecorder, etc. Hello iRiver T30! Hello cheap Behringer mixer!

If the gear I get works okay, my co-host is going to get the same set-up. That way we (a) have a back-up recorder running, and (b) if Skype is cutting out a lot, we can always revert to a double-ender.

[Hammer Uncut]

Hi everyone. I can't do anything about improving the quality of Skype, but I can tell you that I'm using a very simple system for recording Skype calls that works great.

I tried using HotRecorder, PowerGramo and a couple other Skype recording programs and they worked okay, but all I've done now is to run a 1/8th to xlr cable directly from the line out on my PC to the xlr mic input on my mixer and it works great. Not only can I record skype calls but I also have control of the levels of the callers, independant from my levels.

[Soccer Shout]

That's what I'm looking to do.

I'm gonna put my mic into the mixer then into (a) the FX out to the PC and(b) the right channel of the 'main out'.

Then I'm going to route the 'headphones' out of my pc into my mixer and have it play on the left channel of the 'main out'.

I'm going to have an iRiver T30 recording on the main out, and I can monitor the whole thing on the headphones of the mixer.

[Kelly@Based]

During my many advenetures with skype... I've found that there is a little voodoo involved.

Lighting a candle and chanting seems to help.

K

[Hammer Uncut]

I find it interesting that so many people seem to have trouble with Skype and I wonder if it's because they are running too many other resource intensive programs at the same time or something, because I've used Skype regularly for over a year with zero problems other than a little static once in awhile, that usually only lasts a few seconds.

[Soccer Shout]

You only find it 'interesting' because it's happening to other people! Academic detachment is easy when it's not your show getting cut to bits by the ghouls of the internet. :)

Seriously, I think CPU is the key. I only have problems when my cpu gets maxxed out.

Firefox is sometimes the guilty party - some websites seem to send it do-lally.

Other times I've had my virus scan kick in - v. annoying.

But that dodgy Skype build that was maxxing out the cpu was doing me in recently.

So I'm taking the recording duties off the PC, and with a bit of luck I'll find another piece of kit to surf with as well.