I like talking. I even like talking to other people. I find streams are often more interesting with more than one person talking, and I have generally been using Skype to make it happen. I only know a few people's Skype accounts, though, and I'm sure there are others who would like to join the conversation sometimes. Since I'm big on the idea of call-ins to streams, I mentioned it to Dr. Sage to see if he had any ideas.
Being the nerd he is, Dr. Sage went looking for something lighter weight and easier on bandwidth than Skype, is quick and easy to use on Mac and Windows, and possibly has a way to reduce the delay between Twitch video and our real-time conversation. He came across Mumble, which is basically like TeamSpeak or any other app that lets people log onto a server and just talk to whoever is there. So, it's kind of like a Shoutbox for voice where anybody could log in or out at any point to chat with whoever is there.
Mumble is free, easy to setup via wizard, and really does have a lower impact on my machine & streams than Skype. It also means you don't have to share your Skype info if you want to keep that separate. There also doesn't seem to be a person limit or anything like you would hit with a Skype call, but we haven't had more than three people on it yet. I'm not too sure on the delay aspect, but I also don't know how much can be done to eliminate the delay between real-time conversation and what users are seeing. I'm guessing I can show a window or my screen via Skype to keep everyone real-time, but I'm not sure if sending the video output two places will kill my machine or my bandwidth.
If anybody knows more about this topic or has suggestions, please let me know.
If you want to try joining in the conversation, the information for Jamie's server is as follows:
Server/IP: 50.31.0.29 Port: 64738 Password: pns
You can get the Mumble client at:
http://www.mumble.com/
