Petition for better voice audio quality

[puntloos]

Bought the entire season purely on the merit of the first game (from what, 1994?). Overall I liked the game a lot, although I suppose the situations could be slightly more 'zany' for my tastes.

One thing bugged me though, the bad audio quality used for the voice samples. Now I admit I'm a music lover so my standards are probably higher than average but really, the sound quality was so sub par.. what did you guys use, 10kbit mp3? (OK I overexaggerate a bit, but frankly I found the sound of the ORIGINAL game better :eek: )

(just to make it clear Im not suggesting to replace the voice actors, those were fine)

Please telltale games, won't you either

a/ encode the audio (I heartily reccommend ogg vorbis - its 100% free) at a higher bitrate
b/ keep the audio the same for internet download size reasons, but give us better audio in the CD release

I figure I'll add a poll here to see if I stand alone on this.

[puntloos]

Oh, ehm, and given that there are poll answers about 5 seconds after I posted my poll, I would humbly ask that you take some time to specifically listen to the voice quality for any lenght of time instead of just going on that you didn't notice it while playing. (not saying YOU did that, just generally ;) )

Anyway while I'm at it, allow me to make another minor point. People's sensitivity to bad sound quality is always increasing. When 128kbit mp3's hit the scene (again, 1993 or so..) they called it 'near CD quality' and very few people criticized that. By now, many people would be ashamed to play such mp3's to friends while saying 'here, listen to how awesome my new stereo sounds!'. I submit that MAYBE you don't hear the problems today, but that in the future, this might start to bug you, while it is little to no additional effort for telltale to fix this stuff pre-emptively. The human brain learns to listen for things, and in some samples, the compression artifacts really stick out. (at least for me, longtime mp3-listener)

[xChri5x]

5 to 1 owned!
http://i34.photobucket.com/albums/d128/FloggingMurphy/kiddancing.gif

[puntloos]

Heh, hey, 7-4 now..

Anyway I suppose I should've added another poll option: 'It's OK but I don't mind it improving'

[numble]

Anyway I suppose I should've added another poll option: 'It's OK but I don't mind it improving'

That would be even more poll engineering than what you've already done...

[Jake]

The quality of the voice samples has been brought up plenty of times on these forums, and people at Telltale know that fans have brought this up as an issue. What will we do about it, if anything? I don't know. We've kicked around the idea of releasing a downloadable patch that would swap in high quality speech, or maybe just going high quality on the CD release, or both, or neither.

It's totally up in the air for now.

Needless to say, we've read the threads (and believe it or not we've also played the game a couple times), and it's being discussed.

[taumel]

I thought they would already use ogg vorbis at least for the aud files...

Ogg can sometimes delay a bit so it can make sense using a mix of uncompressed formats like wav for responsive short stuff and a compressed one like ogg for all the long sounds.

[Sp0tted]

Seriously guys, quit your damn bitching. It's getting old, and it's not going to change anyway.

[apignarb]

A wise man once said "Only bitches complain about bitching, when there is no bitching in sight". Or maybe he wasn't that wise. But anyways, this is just constructive critisism, it's not like they're saying "OMG! SUXOR SOUND PLZ!#@£$@£€", they're just voicing a concern.

Well, my point is anyways my dear friend, if noone points out what THEY believe is a down-point in someones art, the artist never find out, and has no way of even considering if it's a valid critisism, and thus maybe even contemplating if they should do something about it or not.

Me myself, didn't notice it, but then again, I have a lousy stereo.

[Sp0tted]

I've just always thought it was fine. There has never been one person's impression of sam or max that I thought was off.

Let's just say the guys from hit the road died... should we just cancel the series forever because of it?

No, of course not. Give the new guys a chance. I'm sure the old actors had time to refine their work, let the new ones get a chance, too.

[Mel]

I think the original poster is fine with the new voice actors, it was the audio quality he was discussing. :)

[Soup]

although i likes me some fine audio quality, I've never found 128 kbs audio to be really bad. As long as there are any pops, it sounded fine piping out of my computer speakers.

I guess if it's not too much trouble, pump them up for the CD release. But for now, all eyes on staying the course and pumping out episodes in a timely fashion!

[Sp0tted]

I think the original poster is fine with the new voice actors, it was the audio quality he was discussing. :)

That's what I get for not actually reading the posts. ;-)

I'll just save this for the next time some one brings it up.

[puntloos]

That would be even more poll engineering than what you've already done...

You mean like, say, stating something without any proof, providing no quotes/examples, implying foul play and hinting that anyone who doesn't see through my obvious tricks is an idiot? That kind of engineering? :rolleyes:

Anyhow, In my defense, Ive looked through the first few pages of the forum, and didn't see a topic (let alone a poll) that I thought applied to the issue at hand. Now that telltale says they are at least aware of the topic, I'm satisfied that they will at consider the issue. If it is their business choice to leave it as it is, I will respect that.

[Roft]

I like the New Voice actors just fine. I'm just rather surprised to hear audio sampling that is equal to or worse quality than that of the 1994 version of the Sam & Max game. Could you PLEASE offer high quality audio file sizes for those that aren't on 56k modems? Horribly compressed audio kills me in a age where we have high quality digital equipment & fairly high bandwith.

I suppose I expected at least sound quality better than the 1994 game.

I will say that this has given me reason to wait to buy other games like Bone and such. Fuzzy voices don't do it for me. And Maxes voice levels need to be brought up if you are going to keep it at that high compression level. Alot of that voice actors low range voice is sliced off when you compress it all.

[peoples]

It could be a little better, but I can't complain, though some lines get my attention with being bit too overcompressed. Just do(Telltale) it in a way that best suits you, I do not mind downloading bigger file or getting better ones on CD :)

offtopic: The voice acting is great in the game! I really liked every charecter and how their voice was just what I would've expected.

[puntloos]

I like the New Voice actors just fine. I'm just rather surprised to hear audio sampling that is equal to or worse quality than that of the 1994 version of the Sam & Max game. Could you PLEASE offer high quality audio file sizes for those that aren't on 56k modems? Horribly compressed audio kills me in a age where we have high quality digital equipment & fairly high bandwith.

I suppose I expected at least sound quality better than the 1994 game.

I will say that this has given me reason to wait to buy other games like Bone and such. Fuzzy voices don't do it for me. And Maxes voice levels need to be brought up if you are going to keep it at that high compression level. Alot of that voice actors low range voice is sliced off when you compress it all.

Uh that's exactly what this poll is about :) the voice actors are fine, the voice compression isnt :)

[Lazerus101]

When a problem comes calling only a fool sticks his head in the sand.

[RMJ1984]

The trailer ive just seen from episode 2. It sounds like they inproved the soundquality, it more dark and not so squicky like some voices in episode 1.

[Rowne]

I have nothing against the audio quality, actually it helps make the game feasible for dialup users and I fully support that. I remember back when I was on dialup with some company or other over here in the UK and it was terrible trying to download anything, to link to a suitable analogy it was like trying to do the average rounds at the supermarket whilst wearing lead shoes and being followed by little aliens with lasers that would frequently zap my groceries for their amusement. Okay, granted that wasn't a very good analogy, in fact it sucked ... but it'll do. The point is that I remember, slow speeds and disconnects every few hours, it was depressing to try to download anything over a couple of hundred MeB.

I'm actually amazed at the filesizes that Telltale use, how much they can fit into these little packed files of theirs. It's genuinely amazing on times when one considers all the models, textures, art and voices in such a small space. If there's one thing other companies could learn from Telltale it's proper compression and optimisation methods.

The sound quality in the first might've been a little off but it's definitely improving and it's better in the second episode, I think they're just trying to get a good quality-to-file-size ratio whilst keeping it a viable download for dialup people and to be frnak, I think that's a noble goal, I just wish that other companies cared about dialup users as much.

I'm not a dialup user anymore (thank the pantheons) but I'm not incompassionate or deaf to their plight either, not everyone has broadband yet and it's nice to see that some online content is available to them, too.

[Codmate]

How about a broadband version in FLAC?
It would be about 300mb - much less than the Dreamfall demo ;)

[markiemrboo]

I downloaded the demo of episode 1 just last night, tried to run it, and every time got some urlmon.dll crash. Disappointed already. However, I tried again this morning and it worked fine. Strange.

The very first thing I noticed was the absolutely appalling quality of the voices. Disappointed again. It's very sad, but I shalln't be buying this game until the voice quality is sorted out.

It doesn't have to be some uber lossless compression like FLAC either, just enough so that there's no unbearable hissing at the end of.... apparently every single word spoken.

(it's not literally every single word spoken, it's just the sibilance is rather bad and in passages with a lot of speech it can give the impression of every word)

[Acid_Fox]

As some said, I really don't mind the voice actors, but the speech quality is way too low, it's totally over compressed. I use headphones, and that just makes the hissing al the worse. It's kinda sad, because the rest of the product is amazing (specially the music), and that really lowers the final quality... of the product.

[Evil Penguin]

I voted for "please improve it", and I want to make it absolutely clear that I am very happy with the voice acting itself, but I agree that the sound files have been too heavily compressed.

Still, I do understand that TTG wants to keep file sizes down, but I hope that it can be improved (perhaps the same download that is available now + an optional high quality sound pack?).

Especially when I played part of it with headphones, the heavy compression was very apparent.

[Nasarius]

Chalk up another person who's played a friend's copy of the game and was shocked at the audio quality. Some of the voices sound almost okay, but others (eg, Max) have obvious artifacts all over the place, making it sound like a bad RealPlayer stream.

It's shocking because the rest of the game - the humor, the art, the animation, the voice acting, and especially the music - is excellent. So what happened to quality control on the voice samples? I will buy the series as soon as this is sorted out, but not before.

[Nasarius]

By the way, if you honestly think the audio isn't bad, just compare the speech sound quality from the first trailer of Situation: Comedy ("Next time, on..."), to the second (cooking gameplay). The difference should be obvious: the first is high-quality, the second has been horribly compressed and is what the game actually sounds like.

[Screaming Gamer]

Well if they can put games up like Ankh which has good sound quality then why can't TTG do the same with Sam n Max? Ok so Ankh was a third party job but still, it didn't put people off downloading that. I know it didn't for me.

The speach is acceptable but it isn't what I expected from a feature game!
Now, I am a music producer and I am quite fussy about my sound quality.

Have you guys ever considered ATRAC? Basically its a Sony codec which allows a very low bit rate. ATRAC set as 24kb will sound like an mp3 set at 192kb. It's amazing! A song file which would weigh in at around 5mb in mp3 format is downsized to around 1mb in ATRAC and it sounds fantastic! I don't know if sony will supply the codec for games and software but heck, TTG theres no harm in asking!

With ATRAC you can meet our quality demands and meet your low file demands. ;)

[Yohmi]

But Atrac is not free at all ^^

[Hunam]

Oh god yes, ive had a bone with this since bone (see what i did there) came out, sample quality is abit dreadful.

[Screaming Gamer]

But Atrac is not free at all ^^

But I DIDN'T say it WAS free did I. ;)

It is far better than all the other options (quality and stability wise).
There is no latency in sound as .ogg formats seem to have and the compression rates can be a lot lower than an mp3 and still have a CD quality sound which mp3's can't do.

[Yohmi]

Yes, but ogg is free, that's why Telltale uses it. Useless to pay a licence, Ogg is one of the most powerfull encoder avalaible (because of its VBR) and is free. The problem is only up to telltale game to sacrify ten to twenty megs to enhance sound quality, but apparently they don't want to...

[Screaming Gamer]

True but personally I'd want a crisp detailed game with crisp....enough audio.
You get what I mean? The whole complete package thing comes in play and until an update or CD release comes out with this, it's always going to feel lacking in the audio department.

It's not so much a complaint as it is a comment.;)

[Nasarius]

There is no latency in sound as .ogg formats seem to have

If there is "latency", the game engine/audio library is broken. It's not the fault of Vorbis; at the point where sound output gets synchronized with game action, the sound should already be decompressed into memory. Sure, Vorbis takes a few more CPU cycles to decode than MP3, but this really isn't an issue unless you're running ancient hardware. It's not like Sam & Max is a resource-intensive game.

[robbyt]

hey noobs!

(yes, i'm referring to the people who suggested hairbrain ideas such as atrac AND the guilty devloper who decided that the voiceover quality was "good enough)

there are tuns of FREE audio codecs that are designed for speech. How do you think VoIP sounds so good with such a low bit rate? How do you think your cellphone works?


http://www.voip-info.org/wiki-Codecs


do some research! The voice overs sound like ASS. Peroid!
Unless you're using some crap plastic speakers that are built into your LCD screen, or unless you're playing the game with your fingers firmly planted into your ears, you HAVE to agree with me.


(voice acting is top notch though!!)

[jamscones]

Hi! Add another voice to the bad voice quality party!

The voice samples in both episodes are *shockingly* bad - bad enough that you shouldn't get away with it without people pointing it out wherever you go, like having red pen ink on your face. If I were to describe the voices in one word, it would be "bubbly".

Seriously guys - you're charging full game prices for the season, and we should get full game quality for that price. The difference in download size is going to have less bearing on the overall gameplay experience than the quality of the content therein. Just a thought.

[Kraken]

I would really want better voice quality as well. Vocal talents are so important part of the game that I hate when the voices just cracks up due to the packing.

[Yohmi]

True but personally I'd want a crisp detailed game with crisp....enough audio.
You get what I mean? The whole complete package thing comes in play and until an update or CD release comes out with this, it's always going to feel lacking in the audio department.

It's not so much a complaint as it is a comment.;)

It's not the first thread about audio quality, I already gave my point about this part, and as I'm a hughe audiophile, I really hate the compression used in the game. I use "semi" hifi headphones (beyerdynamic DT440) with a very big precision and honesty, and if the music sounds pretty great, speech tracks are ugly, very very ugly. So ugly that I can't play using my headphones because I feel like playing sort of smd tracks (sega genesis audio files), but it was in 1992.
It has already been said that this choice was made to improve size of the package. Of course I think it could be great to have the choice, to download a "hifi pack" for those who can use broadband access. But for the moment, no response about that. For sure, telltale guys knows some people wants that, as some people wants widescreen resolution, as some people wanted a new voice and a new model of the girl in bone. It took time but now it's done. I think (and I hope) it's just a matter of time :)

[SovietRocket]

You should have added a "don't give a s$$t" as one of your answers. I would go in that category. You seem to be an expert in sounds which is awesome because I have the musical skills of an elephant and am always enamored w/musicians, but I don't know how much people actually care about it for the deisgners to spend their time on it.

Based on your poll, the people that care way outweigh those that don't so I guess I can eat my tongue, but I'm just wondering if this really is a huge issue for people or it's one of those minor game issues that people wouldn't notice had this not been brought up.

[SovietRocket]

And puntloos, that did not mean to sound as snarky towards you as it did. I was just wondering how much it is an issue for the designers to dedicate extra time towards it instead of diverting that energy elsewhere.

[fhqwhgads]

Hmm, strange,

I didn't really notice the sound quality issue as I played the game. True, I'm no audiophile, but I just wonder if it would really make such a difference to the gameplay experience.

That being said, I'm all for releasing an extra audio pack or better quality on the CD (or even DVD?) version. Being in the position where I actually pay for my internet bandwidth, I would apreciate the option to not download 50mb extra (and thus pay extra) for something which I did not even notice in the first place.

[TextureGlitch]

I just want to make it perfectly clear to people that if you only have teensy 2 watt speakers either built into your monitor or ones that came free with your computer then, no, you're not going to hear what we're talking about.

But I can assure you that playing back any of Sybil's lines makes my speakers cry :P
And I know that Telltale are professional enough to record such talented voice actors in full studio quality, so they have all the files.

I think it's great that Telltale distributes small, highly compressed games for downloading, because it's sure to hit a broader audience (especially those with tiny speakers), so I'm most definitely in favor of a separate download package that those who have the bandwidth, patience and desire for full quality audio can retrieve and install on their own.


I would really, really like to hear from a technical developer at Telltale on this issue, because as far as I can tell, all the spoken audio are in separate vox files and all you'd need to do is overwrite all of those with uncompressed versions (or less compressed ones). You wouldn't need to change the audio engine to accept other sound formats or anything.

I can't imagine this could take more than 10 minutes to write a script for that'll zip all the bigger vox files and put them in one file that can be downloaded on the website, so I get the feeling that I'm missing something important here.

Are there performance issues with large vox files?
Is there a limit to the filesize?
Do larger files take too long to process and will cause lag in the game?
Is it mandatory to compress vox files this much?
Will full quality vox files be too gigantic to distribute?
Do you need to change the file format and rewrite the audio engine if you want better quality audio?

What obvious obstacle to success am I missing here?

[fhqwhgads]

I just want to make it perfectly clear to people that if you only have teensy 2 watt speakers either built into your monitor or ones that came free with your computer then, no, you're not going to hear what we're talking about.

I have a 2.1 speaker system connected to a audigy II soundcard, so my system is not what you would call basic. Maybe the audigy's filters makes my sound better? :p

[Yohmi]

fhqwhgads > there is a lot of different qualities of speakers. Last week I sold a pair of speakers costing about 4500$. It's not basic, it's true. But If you have an audio system that cost 60 bucks (nevermind your soundcard) for sure you just hear a few mediums, something you can call acute, and a big bass boost that make "boom boom" it's true you could not hear the difference... it's like all those things they put on japanese soups, they all have the same flavour, even the same color.
Actually, I don't have Hifi speakers, but sometimes I use JBL's Creatures II system, which let me hear some glitches... but with headphones it's awfull... even if you youse portable devices (like a Koss Portapro, with his well-known V equalizer) you can hear it.

[fhqwhgads]

Ok, true, but my speakers are a far cry from "teensy 2 watt speakers".

To be honest, I have replayed episode 1 and have listened closely and must admit the sound IS below the standard. But my point stil remains that the sound quality did not affect my initial game experience.

That said, I'm all for releasing a patch or add-on for those who did find it annoying!

[Screaming Gamer]

I have a 2.1 speaker system connected to a audigy II soundcard, so my system is not what you would call basic. Maybe the audigy's filters makes my sound better? :p

No, I have the top of the range Soundlaster X-fi soundcard and the 24bit crystalizer only makes it worse. It's supposed to enhance it but the only thing it enhances is the niose in the voices. So when I buy a brilliant soundcard I expect it to be used and Sam n Max doesn't use it.

[fhqwhgads]

Touche,

I would just like to thank everybody. Now that it has been pointed out to me, I am PAINFULLY aware of the sound quality. The director during the Midtown Cowboys puzzle is especially grusome. Thanks a LOT! ;)

[deathstar]

Please make the voice quality sound better it would make the game so much better and not annoying to hear. Even though I've only played the 2 demo's so far I am displeased with the voice quality as it murders the fantastic writing and voice acting. It sounds muffled, flat, and many of the words have a static like effect. I also noticed the big difference in voice quality from the the two Ep 2 video traliers.

[Emily]

By the way, if you honestly think the audio isn't bad, just compare the speech sound quality from the first trailer of Situation: Comedy ("Next time, on..."), to the second (cooking gameplay). The difference should be obvious: the first is high-quality, the second has been horribly compressed and is what the game actually sounds like.

It's funny you think so, considering the trailer footage and the gameplay video were captured at the same time, on the same machine. ;)

[Nasarius]

It's funny you think so, considering the trailer footage and the gameplay video were captured at the same time, on the same machine. ;)

I keep listening, but I can't see how this could possibly be the case. The distortion of sibilance and other artifacts are either gone or vastly minimized in the trailer. I suppose it might be possible with a truly superb mastering job...

Here, I made two clips (captured on an Audigy 4):
http://www.drakostar.com/files/samnmax/samnmax-trailer.wav
http://www.drakostar.com/files/samnmax/samnmax-game.wav

Oh, and there's the other possibility: that the second trailer sounds awful because it was compressed badly by GameTap. Either way, the first trailer still sounds better than the game.

[Emily]

Are you talking about our trailer (the one up on our website), or GameTap's trailer?

Remember that gameplay videos (and trailers) are captured from the game and then converted into WMV format, or Flash, or something else so they can be put up on the website. Nothing that's captured from the game and put up on the web in another format is really a valid representation of what the game sounds like.

As we've said before, the sound compression we use helps keep the downloads small, and that is a top priority. We're considering releasing versions with higher quality audio at some point, but it's probably not going to happen before the end of the season. Telltale is well aware of the pros and cons of the audio we use. It is nice to get a feel for how many people would download a bigger version with higher quality audio if it were available, but we're not going to go out and change the way we build our games based on a few complaints about the audio. There are a lot of people out there who think it sounds fine.

[Lysandus]

Well, 35% of all people apparently. :)

Though seriously, while I realize the forums on a game's website usually aren't very representative, I'd expect it be a bit more so for a web-distributed game like Sam & Max.

[Emily]

Well, 35% of all people apparently. :)

If you thought the voice quality was absolutely fine the way it is, would you bother to post in a thread called "petition for better voice audio quality"? ;) (Fine, maybe you would, but I personally wouldn't, and I'm sure there are others out there like me!)

We have learned from past experience that the people who tend to complain loudest about something on our forum usually don't represent the vast majority of people out there. I'm not saying that we aren't paying attention to what you guys have to say, but you all have to understand that we can't go around making business decisions based on a forum thread, either.

[Kevin]

We are certainly hear (loud and clear) that there is a group of folks that would prefer less compressed audio. However, we are still a small studio that is delivering you a game every 30 days. We simply don't have the resources to create and support any different versions of our games at the moment. There is more involved than just "zipping up" higher quality audio. It also involves supporting people who's download didn't work, or those who can't get the higher quality audio working, those who get confused by the multiple offerings, designing the site so you guys can access the larger files, making the installer, etc. It quickly adds up when you only have 4 weeks in between game releases (15 days if you take the GameTap launch into consideration).

We'd rather wait until we can offer the higher quality properly than rush to give you something half thought through. Until then, I hope the compression isn't so distracting that you can't enjoy the game!

[ShaggE]

If you thought the voice quality was absolutely fine the way it is, would you bother to post in a thread called "petition for better voice audio quality"? ;) (Fine, maybe you would, but I personally wouldn't, and I'm sure there are others out there like me!)


She says after posting in this thread :P j/k

[Nasarius]

We'd rather wait until we can offer the higher quality properly than rush to give you something half thought through. Until then, I hope the compression isn't so distracting that you can't enjoy the game!
I appreciate the detailed response, but the simple answer seems to be to fix the audio for everyone. You're already talking about 70MB downloads, I don't see how it would change much to bump that up to maybe 100MB. I'm not aware of a single other commercial game, downloadable or otherwise, that uses such extreme, quality-destroying compression on their audio samples. It's not about adding a feature, it's fixing a problem. I understand that it's nontrivial to update the episodes you've already released, but it makes sense to change your settings when packaging the media for the next one.

[TextureGlitch]

I agree with Nasarius. There is not an episodic game as small as Telltale's in the world. Half-life, Advent, SiN, etc. are all expecting people to download several hundreds of megabytes and they don't seem to be cutting off any potential customers because of large download sizes.

But we could keep discussing this forever without agreeing on anything, and I'll be the first to admit I don't have any statistics to back up my argument.
You must have some marketing research guys on your team who can figure out if the supersmall download is the actual reason that S&M is so popular, or if it's just something we're all telling ourselves.

Exactly what percentage of Telltale gamers are on dial-up and would anyone be unwilling to buy the games if for instance the download size doubled?

Personally I'm a rabid fan with broadband, so I'd download it even if it was a 4GB installer, but I do understand Telltale's need to revive the genre and introduce the new generation to adventure games.
But honestly. The most recent Internet survey showed that 78% of all internet connections in the USA are broadband ;)

[numble]

Personally I'm a rabid fan with broadband, so I'd download it even if it was a 4GB installer, but I do understand Telltale's need to revive the genre and introduce the new generation to adventure games.
But honestly. The most recent Internet survey showed that 78% of all internet connections in the USA are broadband ;)

And everyone on Gametap has a broadband connection... but I've already seen at least one post from South Africa saying how grateful he/she is for the small download size, as he/she is on dial-up and they charge them outrageous rates even for a dial-up connection.

[fhqwhgads]

And everyone on Gametap has a broadband connection... but I've already seen at least one post from South Africa saying how grateful he/she is for the small download size, as he/she is on dial-up and they charge them outrageous rates even for a dial-up connection.

Yes, yes and thanks.

I know this is a little off topic, but its just to bring things more in perspective. Our telecoms company in SA (the ONLY telecoms company in the country) is so outrageously overpriced, that recently a journalist made the following comparison:

The cost of downloading 100GB of data with our 'broadband' service at a maximum speed of 1Mbps is would roughly amount to R9918.28 (about $1,391.49) and take 9.5 days to download.

The cost of flying to Hong Kong, visiting an internet cafe and downloading 100GB there at 1Gbps would be R7959.43 (about $1,113.96) and take 13 mins (excluding time spent on plane).

While I do appreciate the fact that the most of the US has broadband, I would just like to give TextureGlitch a friendly reminder that the world is not equal the USA ;).

[mech]

Curse this thread... I had no problems in episode 1, but after reading this, every distortion on the voices is bugging me now :(

[xChri5x]

poooooooooooooh They're fine

[Ebeeto]

I have to agree with Nasarius on all points. Start compressing the sound less in future releases. Adding just a couple of megabytes could probably make the squeekiness of the voices go away.

[Quuux]

Speex codec could get the low bitrates with decent quality, since it's optimised for voice; and it's FLOSS like ogg vorbis

[Mr Party Hat]

Just finished the whole season, and I must say I agree completely. It was one of the only annoyances in an otherwise excellent update (no widescreen support being the other thing, but we've already been there several times :P).

The majority of the voice work and Jared Emerson-Johnson's excellent score were top notch, so it's a shame that they were crushed by such poor quality bitrates. I'm of the opinion that audio makes up a third of the whole game experience, perhaps even more in adventure games, so it would be great to see some slightly larger files in Season 2. :)