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Team Sound Version 4.5
Fig. 3. Team Sound LogoThe new kid on the block is full of new ideas and features. TeamSound (TS) has retained the best features of the other communications programs for online play (adjustable bandwidth, channels, and easy connections). They have also added a novel new feature that can really reduce the bandwidth requirements when communicating frequently used commands to your online buddies. They call this feature Battlefield Sequencer. This unique feature triggers a synthesized voice communication locally, at the receiving computer, by sending text over the Internet. Do not underestimate the power of this feature. The bandwidth requirements for voice communications, even utilizing the very efficient compression techniques used by all of these programs, are not insignificant. A very small character string, on the other hand, is insignificant. The premise behind Battlefield Sequencer is that it uses Microsoft's Speech API to produce voice from text at the receiving computer. It has the added advantage that you only must push a button at the sending computer to initiate the transmission. It is easy to set up. Select Command & Control from the File drop down menu. Select Add then highlight the new icon that appears. Press a key, select an action from the drop down menu, and add the speech you want spoken or the channel you wish to select. You can save and import multiple configurations. This is frighteningly easy to use.
Fig. 4. Command and Control PanelOptions! Pages and pages of options. Only Speak Freely has more flexibility than Team Sound. Most impressive is that I could understand what the options were supposed to do without a dictionary. God bless whoever designed these Options windows and decided to use plain English and something like complete sentences.
It would be easy to write pages on the ten options windows in TS. But why bother? It is that easy to use.
Fig. 5. General Options
