Petition for better voice audio quality

[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]

Originally Posted by 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.

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?

[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]

Originally Posted by fhqwhgads

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?

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]

Originally Posted by 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.

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]

Originally Posted by Emily

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/samnm...ax-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]

Originally Posted by Lysandus

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]

Originally Posted by Emily

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]

Originally Posted by Kevin

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]

Originally Posted by TextureGlitch

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]

Originally Posted by numble

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