Our mission to improve independent spoken media
FeenPhone sounds much better than Skype, Mumble, TeamSpeak, Blink, Ventrilo, Google Hangouts, mobile phones or landlines.
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FeenPhone is no-cost software that opens up a global world of possibilities for real-time high-quality voice media production, or simply conversation, over any distance.
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Before FeenPhone, there has never been a way to do ultra-high-quality full-duplex decentralized talk communication in real time for free. FeenPhone does all this, and you can start using it today.
FeenPhone AUDIO EXAMPLES:
Freedom Feens co-host MK Lords doing a live show
on nationally syndicated radio over FeenPhone software.
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FeenPhone is being given away free, and the source code is available free for people to examine, vet, use, change or develop as they like.
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Why not just use Skype?
FeenPhone is superior in audio quality to Skype, Mumble, TeamSpeak, Blink, Ventrilo, Google Hangouts and phones. FeenPhone sounds crystal clear compared to all these programs/platforms.
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And these programs aren’t truly duplex; when one person speaks loudly, it cuts out the quieter person. This makes conversations sound unnatural. Even experienced radio hosts sometimes naturally talk over each other a little bit, especially at the end of one person speaking and the start of another person speaking. We built software that is full-duplex so the audience feels like they’re in the same room with the people speaking, rather then having it feel like one person should say “Over…” when finished with a sentence. FeenPhone being true duplex makes it superior to other voice-over-Internet programs or phones in making conversations more conversational….more natural, less artificial.
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Another way that true duplex makes FeenPhone better is in producing a show with remote co-hosts using music. With other voice-over-Internet programs, when the bumper music comes in, any host talking over it to lead in to, or out of, a talk segment gets squashed down by the music, and you can’t easily hear what they’re saying. With FeenPhone, both the music and the person speaking sound clear.
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Skype, Mumble, TeamSpeak, Blink, Ventrilo, Google Hangouts etc. all have their uses…general phone calls or 50 people yelling at each other while gaming. But these other VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) programs are not sufficient for doing broadcast-quality conversational audio in real time over a distance. They’re all made for using cheap headset mics (or no headset, i.e. just a laptop’s on-board mic and speaker) in noisy locations over varying quality Internet. Therefore, you’ll never get stellar sound from any of them. Plus, FeenPhone is P2P, those others use a central server to initiate and/or connect, which lowers audio quality and increases latency, audio artifacting and drop-outs. This also decreases privacy; some of those programs do not make their source code available, so who knows how they work or what they’re doing with your data and call records? With FeenPhone, there is no call record.
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The criteria for making audio for podcasting, radio and remote voiceover are different than for general phone calls and gaming. We created FeenPhone, a no-cost program for podcasters, Internet radio shows, voiceover artists, filmmakers, radio hosts and radio station STL links that meets our unique needs. We built a ground-up peer-to-peer system designed for very low latency, no drop-outs and excellent sound when used in a room with little or no background noise with decent mics over good cable Internet (or even DSL) connections.
Uses for FeenPhone
FeenPhone enables ultra-high-quality true-duplex spoken audio in real time when doing live media with others in remote locations. It is already being used by radio hosts and Internet radio hosts for great-sounding live shows. It’s being used by podcasters to make multi-host shows where the hosts live thousands of miles apart. It’s a boon for voiceover artists working with remote clients or producers.
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FeenPhone can be used by filmmakers to direct and record voiceover talent in a different location for film narration, or to direct and record actors for ADR – dubbing lines after the filming is completed. It can be used to direct and record native speakers in other countries when dubbing foreign-language versions of films. It can be used to direct readers of audio books in remote locations.
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FeenPhone can be used for calls with hearing-impaired people who have trouble understanding calls over other voice-over-Internet programs and phones.
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FeenPhone can be used by radio stations for STL (studio-to-tower links). And this STL capability could be extended to connect a radio network to affiliate stations, replacing the need for costly satellite time, dishes and receiver hardware.
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FeenPhone could be adapted for low-bandwidth ultra-high-quality one-to-many streaming servers for delivery of Internet radio shows.
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FeenPhone could be adapted for ultra-high-quality phone calls on mobile devices. FeenPhone can also be used to take calls on a call-in show, with better audio quality than other voice-over-Internet programs, and with much higher quality than phones. It could also be used by journalists in the field filing live reports, by radio hosts doing “man on the street” interviews and for live remotes from sporting and other events.
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FeenPhone could be used for transmitting push-to-talk citizen journalism from rallies, demonstrations, police stops and arrests to send ultra-high-quality audio to a team and/or a remote recorder in case the transmitting device is confiscated. (It could be programmed so three quick pushes on the device key locks it in transmit mode until a code is entered to unlock it.) These are situations where it’s of the utmost importance that every word is audible and discernible, and cell phone audio is anything but clear.
FeenPhone Mission Statement
Most independently produced audio sounds somewhat crunchy, thin and/or distorted. If people have to struggle through your sound they’ll leave the website or change the channel and miss your message.
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Some people with mediocre production quality make excuses about their audio being “good enough for the Internet”, but that’s a cop-out. And many more people have never even considered their audio quality.
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Independent Media will not be taken seriously until our production values match that of the mainstream media. And listeners who don’t specifically notice audio quality enough to say “That sounds great!” will still listen longer and more often to the better sounding show, all other things being equal. They will also recommend the better sounding show more to other people, even if they don’t know why.
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You can be lazy and use other VoIP programs like Mumble, TeamSpeak, Blink, or Google Hangouts right out the box to make mediocre disposable media. Those programs are good for calls, but are not made for making broadcast-quality media. FeenPhone is made for making broadcast-quality media. So you can use FeenPhone AND take a little bit of care to be stellar and make media that people crave, today and into the future, all over the earth and beyond. It’s your choice.
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FeenPhone is part of our mission to improve audio worldwide. FeenPhone is more than a piece of software; it’s the centerpiece of a complete, well-researched and infallible system for creating ultra-high-quality talk media with co-hosts who are not in the same room. FeenPhone is about collaborating over a distance, and disseminating the results worldwide and across the distance of time to make lasting media for the ages.
How FeenPhone will revolutionize independent media
The oldest and most powerful form of human communication is one person speaking to another. Spoken audio, in the form of podcasts, audio books and radio, is the most intimate and direct way to get an idea across to a wide audience on almost no money.
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Recorded spoken media is also infinitely portable. The file sizes are much smaller than video. And people can consume audio-only media while driving a car or riding a bike. This is not possible (or at least not safe) while consuming video or the printed word.
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The Internet has lowered the cost barrier for a worldwide radio show to a price approaching zero. Yet there is one arena where you still need thousands of dollars to approach the audio quality of the corporate media; doing a live spoken show with more than one host in different geographic locations. FeenPhone does all this, for free.
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I started my show, The Freedom Feens, in 2011 as a podcast. I am now syndicated on three dozen commercial radio stations. I had to buy a $1400 piece of broadcast-specific gear to be able to connect to the network before I was able to go live. FeenPhone will replace the need for that type of gear. FeenPhone can also replace equally expensive STL (signal-to-tower link) hardware for connecting a radio studio to the broadcast tower.
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If you’ve got something to say to the world, the world can already listen. But if your sound quality is substandard, the world isn’t going to listen very long or very often. We built FeenPhone to allow you, us, and everyone to be able to create crystal-clear high-quality collaborative audio over standard Internet connections.
Tell two friends!
Q. Who benefits from FeenPhone?
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A. Media creators and media consumers….In other words, pretty much everyone. FeenPhone removes the price barrier to producing live ultra-high-quality collaborative spoken audio. This takes it out of the hands of only these with thousands of dollars to spend.
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Listen to The Freedom Feens. Our show is a “teaching hospital” for radio. We have twenty co-hosts, two or three each night, seven nights a week, connecting via FeenPhone from a dozen states, four countries and two continents. We regularly explain technical aspects of doing live radio while we do it. And on the rare occasion we make a technical mistake on air, we explain it rather than hiding it like most shows would. Every episode since Dec 24, 2014 is done over FeenPhone (unless otherwise noted in the show notes).
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Most audio isn’t very good. FeenPhone is part of a mission to improve audio worldwide. So again, if you enjoy FeenPhone, please, tell two friends!
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–Michael W. Dean, Freedom Feen, December 31, 2014.
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