Speex is an Open Source/Free Software patent-free audio compression format designed for speech.

The Speex Project aims to lower the barrier of entry for voice applications by providing a free alternative to expensive proprietary speech codecs. Moreover, Speex is well-adapted to Internet applications and provides useful features that are not present in most other codecs.

Speex is a useful audio compression utility that will come in handy. Speex is based on CELP and is designed to compress voice at bitrates ranging from 2 to 44 kbps.

Here are some key features of "Speex":

· Narrowband (8 kHz), wideband (16 kHz), and ultra-wideband (32 kHz) compression in the same bitstream
· Intensity stereo encoding
· Packet loss concealment
· Variable bitrate operation (VBR)
· Voice Activity Detection (VAD)
· Discontinuous Transmission (DTX)
· Fixed-point port
· Acoustic echo canceller
· Noise suppression


Note that Speex has a number of features that are not present in other codecs, such as intensity stereo encoding, integration of multiple sampling rates in the same bitstream (embedded coding), and a VBR mode.

What's New in This Release: [ read full changelog ]

· All non-codec components (preprocessor, echo cancellation, jitter buffer) have been moved to a new libspeexdsp library
· New jitter buffer algorithm and resampler improvements/fixes
· First release where libspeex can be built without any floating point support