ISDN worth investing for small VO studio/ versus IP?

[dax-baxter]

Hi I do voice-over work in large part from home studio. Feel pressured to invest in ISDN after a disastrous "no connection" miss-hap at an affordable studio...lost the client! Not nearly as busy as I'd like to be, so ISDN would be a large expense for me. I have Source Elements but haven't yet had the opportunity to use it. Do you think IP (internet protocal) will knock out ISDN fairly soon? Would I be wise to go for a combination system that handles both ISDN and IP. Musicam Roadwarrior LC sounds tempting? Very much appreciate your input!

[DSD_Mastering]

We're using Comcast's fastest 50Mbps 3G network in here without any problems!


Regards,

[Don S]

It depends where your clients are connecting to. IP is the latest and greatest, but here in public radio world, Zepher extremes at L2 mono 128 are the norm.

[kittonian]

Check out the Source Connect products. It's pretty amazing when both parties have it. You can do remote sessions anywhere in the world and there's no continual ISDN charges. You only need a broadband connection.

If instead you just need a remote party to be able to listen to what's happening in the session in real-time (well a 2 second delay) you can spend even less and pickup Source-Live. That streams your session over Quicktime.

[skiltrip]

I'm in the Audio Visual field.
ISDN is expensive (compared to IP) and is pretty old technology. I know in the corporate world, we've phased out any and all ISDN in favor of IP for everything. I haven't used or dealt with ISDN at a job since about 3 or 4 years ago. I do remember it being a headache when it didn't work though.

[dbjp]

Originally Posted by kittonian

Check out the Source Connect products. It's pretty amazing when both parties have it. You can do remote sessions anywhere in the world and there's no continual ISDN charges. You only need a broadband connection.

If instead you just need a remote party to be able to listen to what's happening in the session in real-time (well a 2 second delay) you can spend even less and pickup Source-Live. That streams your session over Quicktime.

Wow, looks good. I was only aware of the system that the company that I used to work for used. Forget the name, but you'd connect a box to ISDN and can do quite a lot of stuff in real time. Some huge name artists came in for sessions while they were in Japan.
But this looks to have a lot of potential. I wonder how many tracks max you can use with this thing. I'd be interested seeing as I've got 100mbps.

[musicman100]

+1 we used ISDN for compressed video when the university first deployed distance learning technology, and always was a crap shoot on connecting, to quote a bell south tech, it either works or doesn't...
we migrated to IP and even with the vagrancies of the Commodity Internet it is more reliable

Originally Posted by skiltrip

I'm in the Audio Visual field.
ISDN is expensive (compared to IP) and is pretty old technology. I know in the corporate world, we've phased out any and all ISDN in favor of IP for everything. I haven't used or dealt with ISDN at a job since about 3 or 4 years ago. I do remember it being a headache when it didn't work though.

[The MPCist]

Defintely go for the biggest for the budget you have. We've got fiberoptik here and it is fast! Great for Source Connect and sending/receiving session files.!!!

[voiceactor]

Invest in ISDN when you have the clientele to back it. Having ISDN will not necessarily bring you more work. If you are getting asked for ISDN or losing lots of jobs you could have had if you had ISDN it might be worth it. ISDN service is not cheap, anywhere from 100 to 300.00/mo. If you have that kind of money extra each month spend it on promoting yourself and building your client base then the ISDN will pay for itself.

As far as the future goes I am told that many places have already dropped ISDN for IP. I know there are programs in development that will replace ISDN but that will be awhile yet.

[TheArchitect]

Originally Posted by dax-baxter

Hi I do voice-over work in large part from home studio. Feel pressured to invest in ISDN after a disastrous "no connection" miss-hap at an affordable studio...lost the client! Not nearly as busy as I'd like to be, so ISDN would be a large expense for me. I have Source Elements but haven't yet had the opportunity to use it. Do you think IP (internet protocal) will knock out ISDN fairly soon? Would I be wise to go for a combination system that handles both ISDN and IP. Musicam Roadwarrior LC sounds tempting? Very much appreciate your input!

Exactly what are you trying to accomplish here? Real time audio? A little 256k ISDN BRI interface is almost non-existent these days. Are you looking at DS1 or DS3 pipes? IF you are looking at simply point to point T1's those are about as stable as it gets

[Voguy2]

Another option is Audio TX Communicator ISDN Codec Software for PC with audio over IP Networks and Internet - AudioTX Communicator --- Like Source-Connect it operates via IP, but it ALSO has ISDN capabilities. However, you can't run both at the same time. It's about $1200 USD and is software based. I'm actually getting rid of mine only because I'm switching platforms and it ONLY works on a PC. So you could get this and use a bridging company like, Out of Hear | Sound Bridging Made Mobile and clients could call ISDN to them (about $80 per hour, $40 for 1/2 hour session) and you could hook up with them via IP. If you seem to be getting enough clients then simply get an ISDN line and you're ready to go with ISDN... Basically no other equipment to buy.... Lots of voice guys use it.

[James Lehmann]

I reckon ISDN wouldn't pay for itself in an average home studio set-up for the following reasons:

1) If you want a 100% reliable system it's pretty expensive
2) It's probably on the way out over the next few years

Then again I don't know how busy you are and how often you might use it. Maybe it'll pay for itself in a few months? Will having this option actually bring you in more work? Would you have to rent it out to other talent in the area to help pay for it?

For the few ISDN jobs I do I simply tell the client to factor in the cost of me heading down to the nearest ISDN-equipped facility in town, where I know the equipment and engineer are both competent and reliable to the point where I'm prepared to hire them in as an extension of my own business model.

You say you used an 'affordable' ISDN studio before and they lost you a client - have you analysed exactly what went wrong and why and whether this could this be fixed by other means? Shelling out for an entire ISDN system yourself might be taking a sledgehammer to crack a nut!

[Yoda117]

James hit upon a good point regarding the future of ISDN.

FYI: in the US, several of the usual suspects providing ISDN installations are now discontinuing installation of ISDN for residential use. It's always been considered a niche product, but it seems that Sprint in particular wants to tailor service more towards the US Govt. for this service and is taking the first steps to focus their energies at tht target.

When does a voice talent require ISDN? When you're losing business because you don't have it (disasterous non-connents at local studio can be viewed either way, but unless you're doing a couple of spots a month, it's not really worth it IMO).

Besides, SC can be bridged to ISDN (my customers haven't seemed to mind passing the charge along to them), but I don't have enough folks needing it yet to justify it.

[Ben F]

In Australia, from 1st August 2008 Telstra is no longer installing or making changes to link audio services, access audio services, full time intersoc links and itinerant audio services. From 1st January 2009 Telstra will no longer offer temporary access services to existing customers. From 21st November 2009 Telstra will close the network and will no longer offer audio network services.

I have used IP codecs from Tieline and they have been excellent: POTS audio codecs - Tieline Technology