[Asterisk-Users] Asterisk native sounds now available!

[Michael Collins]

Kris,

This is very cool!  Thanks for doing this.  CPU power is at a much
higher premium than disk space, so it makes sense to have prompts in
multiple formats to cut down on unnecessary CPU usage.  I'll trade disk
space for extra CPU muscle any day.

-MC

-----Original Message-----
From: asterisk-users-bounces at lists.digium.com
[mailto:asterisk-users-bounces at lists.digium.com] On Behalf Of Kristian
Kielhofner
Sent: Monday, February 06, 2006 9:48 AM
To: Discussion of AstLinux - Asterisk on Compact Flash;
Asterisk-users at lists.digium.com; astlinux-announce at jail1.krisk.org
Cc: allison at theivrvoice.com
Subject: [Asterisk-Users] Asterisk native sounds now available!

Hello everyone,

	As I promised at eTel last week, I have finished up work on my 
"Asterisk Native Sounds" project.  Here's a little diddy from
astlinux.org:

-----------------------------------

  Asterisk Native Sounds are a collection of audio prompts for Asterisk.

  They will improve quality, reduce CPU usage, reduce latency, and (in 
some cases) eliminate the need for G729 licenses!
The Asterisk Native Sounds are a collection of alternative sounds 
prompts for Asterisk.  Here's how it works.  I had Allison Smith (the 
voice of Asterisk) re-record all of the sound prompts present in 
Asterisk 1.2.  She provided them to me in the best audio format 
possible.  I then converted them into several native Asterisk sound 
formats.  Why would I do all of this?

The default audio prompts provided with Asterisk are in the GSM audio 
format.  GSM audio is nice because it doesn't use much disk space. 
However, because GSM is a loss-based compression format, there is no way

to recover the audio quality lost when they were converted to GSM. 
Also, because few commercial products (including phones) include support

for GSM, you can all but guarantee that Asterisk has to transcode the 
prompts when a device needs them (to access voicemail, for example).

With the Asterisk Native Sounds collection you will be using audio 
prompts with the same voice (Allison) as the standard prompts, saying 
the same thing as the the standard prompts.  The only difference is that

they are provided in several different audio formats (most with better 
quality) so that Asterisk doesn't have to transcode them to the format 
that is being used by the current channel.

Installation is very simple.  Simply download the prompts to a directory

on your Asterisk server.  Any will do.  Once you have downloaded the 
formats you desire, simple follow these steps:

cd /var/lib/asterisk/
mv sounds sounds.orig
tar -xvjf /path/to/sounds.tar.bz2
[repeat last step for other formats]

The audio prompts are available from the "Extras" category in the 
Downloads section of astlinux.org.

While you're thinking about how much processor time you are saving and 
how much happier your users will be with better sounds, why don't you 
send me some money?  Paypal donations are accepted at paypal at krisk.org. 
   Thanks!

Asterisk will immediately being using your new, high quality, audio 
prompts.  Enjoy!

---------------------------------------------------------------

	So anyways, find them in the downloads sections of 
http://www.astlinux.org.  Let me know if you have any problems.

	Also, donate, donate, donate to AstLinux!  I had to compensate
the 
beautiful, wonderful, talented Allison Smith for her efforts on this. 
With all of those qualities, her time is not cheap. :)

Paypal to: paypal at krisk.org

--
Kristian Kielhofner
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