There’s a New Kid on the Block, Its Name is ipDTL
In the first of a series on the new technology that could be huge in the voice over community, British voice talent Rachael Naylor gives her first-hand experience with ipDTL.
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As a voiceover artist with a home studio being able to connect up with other recording studios is very important and recording remotely is a part of a voiceover artist’s everyday life.
It’s important to keep up to speed with the latest technology. For years now everyone has been talking about a new alternative to rival ISDN. There was a lot of talk about Skype doing something for a while, but I haven’t seen anything from them yet, so when I heard about ipDTL I was intrigued.
A producer friend of mine told me about it as he’d seen that it had won a UK Technical Innovation Award in October 2013. We decided to give it ago and we were both pretty blown away by the results!
I’ve been using ipDTL for a couple of months now and I’m so impressed by the quality, which many say is even better than ISDN. Of course, if you have a slow internet connection then that could be a problem, but internet/broadband speeds are increasing all the time so it shouldn’t be an issue for long.
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What do you need to use ipDTL?
*A computer
*A fast internet connection
* Google chrome
* A decent studio set up for recording quality audio.
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Here’s a great video from In Quality about ipDTL :
I thought it might be nice to hear a little bit from the man himself, Kevin Leach is the creator and owner of this exciting new technology.
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How has ipDTL been going since its launch in October?
Manic…in a good way! The product has grown really quickly and it’s been an effort at times to keep up with demand and enquiries. The voice-over market in particular has really got behind ipDTL for which I am very grateful.
Can it really rival ISDN?
The safe answer here is ‘time will tell’. Our original business model installing equipment for radio contributors would not have been viable with ISDN due to the massive financial commitment. That’s why we developed ipDTL so for us it’s more than a rival as ISDN wasn’t even an option. From an environmental point of view it upsets me to think of all of the ISDN gear that will end up in landfill over the next few years. That’s not an issue with ipDTL as there’s no proprietary hardware involved.
What would you say to people who are weary about changing over from ISDN?
Try it. The chances are that you already have a computer with a suitable audio interface. Use them in parallel for a few months, a year, whatever – until you can’t justify the cost of ISDN any more.
We keep hearing about the forthcoming ‘upgrade’. What does this mean?
Our developer is working flat out right now. In the next few weeks we’ll launch a new login page at ipdtl.com (no more /free or /vo). You’ll then be able to connect to any other paid user without sharing your login details – this was always a temporary fudge. You’ll soon also be able to send a link to your client that they click to connect straight to you – even if they’re not a registered user. There’ll be an extra annual fee for this (£149) but if you subscribe now (£99) we’ll convert one of your two logins to a ‘link’ for free.
What does the future hold for ipDTL?
Short-term we’re concentrating on reliability and user-friendliness. There’s a whole list of features which we’ll then look to implement. Easier recording and video support are hopefully not too far away.
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From all reports in the voice over community this is looking like a very real replacement for ISDN. More and more voice actors are giving it a whirl, and only consumers will decide if it’s a hit, or a flop.
To get started, head to www.ipDTL.com/vo, sign up and you can get a free trial month. They send you 2 logins and passwords, one for you and the other for the studio you’re linking up to. You then just log in to ipDTL, click connect and you’re away. It really is that simple.
