Voice call audio quality

[dennisnez]

I find that it "crackles", perhaps an encoding artifact? Are there any settings that I can tweak, maybe to raise/lower the bitrate, or other filters?

I also find the lag (over a second?) a bit frustrating.

Sometimes, perhaps when the (wifi) connection is weak, it'll lose little bits of the conversation. Are these known issues?

[robinlinden]

Hi! Someone on IRC went through aTox's audio code and found that the bitrate was set to a silly high number. :P This will be made configurable in the future, but for now, please give the new 0.8.0 release a try and see if it improves things. :)

See: 70673e5

[robinlinden]

0.8.0 has been released and is available as an .apk and on FDroid. Will be on GPlay soon, I hope. :P Please give it a try and see if things are better.

[akontsevich]

Hi! Someone on IRC went through aTox's audio code and found that the bitrate was set to a silly high number. :P This will be made configurable in the future, but for now, please give the new 0.8.0 release a try and see if it improves things. :)

See: 70673e5

I had perfect connection with my abonents where me and them on good internet speed (i.e wifi). Recently I had call with another abonent: me on wifi, he is on a mobile Internet - I heard him just perfect very loud and without delays, he heard me very bad with big delays and need to guess what I was saying. Then I tried desktop qTox client from my side which allows to set custom low bitrate (16 kbit/s) - my abonent started to hear me very good. May be need to add an option to set high-low bitrate like in qTox (64 kbit/s -> 32 -> 16 -> 8) or adapt it dynamically somehow?

May be update to Toxcore 0.2.20? It has some fixes for sound:

• Use Opus in the CBR mode @nurupo (fix: Use Opus in the CBR mode TokTok/c-toxcore#2757).

P.S. BTW, What bitrate have You set by now? 64 kbit works just fine.

[robinlinden]

Thank you for testing! aTox uses 32 as the bitrate as of 0.8.0, that's why I asked for this to be tested with that release. Before 0.8.0, we were on 128, and that's just ridiculous. Was your testing done on 0.7.3 or 0.8.0?

The plan is to lower the bitrate to 24 and make it customizable, but 24 is apparently good for 1-channel voice calls which is what aTox does right now.

0.2.20 won't make a difference in audio for aTox as we applied that patch to the c-toxcore we build with: 3189f9d, but the plan is to update to 0.2.20 before the next release. :)

[akontsevich]

Thank you for testing! aTox uses 32 as the bitrate as of 0.8.0, that's why I asked for this to be tested with that release. Before 0.8.0, we were on 128, and that's just ridiculous. Was your testing done on 0.7.3 or 0.8.0?

Latest on all the phones - from F-Froid.

The plan is to lower the bitrate to 24 and make it customizable, but 24 is apparently good for 1-channel voice calls which is what aTox does right now.

I tried 16 locally - was not very good, strange delays again. 64 was good locally and 16 was good for far away recipient. Such instability is very strange. I tested uTox 6-7 years ago - quality was perfect like we are in the same room. Now such instabilities are very strange: I still hear my friend perfect - he can't understand me because of big delays.

0.2.20 won't make a difference in audio for aTox as we applied that patch to the c-toxcore we build with: 3189f9d, but the plan is to update to 0.2.20 before the next release. :)

Ok.

Anything we can do for now before the next release? Or it will be soon?

[akontsevich]

I tried phone from the other side - it is terrible: while I can hear abonent perfect, other side hears only inarticulate gurgling. This is even on perfect internet connection on both sides.

2nd problem: often abonent doesn't hear me at all - looks like mic is switched off. After I switch mic and/or speaker button on/off on aTox call screen, aTox enables sound but this gurgling is started again for my abonent. So aTox become totally unusable.

Calling from qTox to aTox works mostly fine. May be some wrong sound bitrate negotiation takes place?

[akontsevich]

Another problem: start conversation, sound is perfect, then after few seconds stream from one of the sides hangs and 1 person hears another, 2nd - no. So a lot of problems.

[akontsevich]

Another problem: start conversation, sound is perfect, then after few seconds stream from one of the sides hangs and 1 person hears another, 2nd - no. So a lot of problems.

Found the reason of this: usually keyboard locks on a mobile phone after some time, after this aTox stops transferring audio from this phone (from mic) during a call: so abonent can hear me, and I can't hear him until he unblocks the keyboard again - very annoing and inconvenient.

[kotsmotritnastul]

i can confirm, voice call is stuttering (maybe p2p problem idk) and i cant hear abonent at all after certain amount of time, maybe due to screen lock time. whatsapp doesnt have this problem, i suggest to add a feature that keeps voice call no matter what.

[akontsevich]

due to screen lock time.

Yeah, have the same.

i suggest to add a feature that keeps voice call no matter what.

Agree!

[robinlinden]

What kinds of phones are you using? aTox reports that it is in an audio call, so Android shouldn't be killing things in the background, but some phone manufacturers do anyway because of battery savings. :(

Can you please also check if there's a battery-savings exception list you can add aTox to?

[akontsevich]

What kinds of phones are you using?

Samsung Galaxy S20 Ultra.

aTox reports that it is in an audio call, so Android shouldn't be killing things in the background, but some phone manufacturers do anyway because of battery savings. :(

May be some outdated API? As Telegram, for example, or other apps are not affected by this (screen lock), but aTox and trifa_material suffer from this.

Can you please also check if there's a battery-savings exception list you can add aTox to?

I've checked: this setting does not affect audio call at all: when screen is locked sound from my phone stops. Also this setting does not affect Telegram or any other app, moreover aTox eats buttery too much even without this setting.