Hi, I just joined Stoxpoker today and was unpleasantly surprised at the sound quality of the videos.

I clicked on a couple of the most recent videos just to get a flavour of what was to come. The first thing I noticed was that there is no volume control in the video streams, this is an extremely basic function and I'm absolutely baffled as to why it is not present.

The first video I watched began with somebody shouting out over the noise of a TV, and somebody else talking over him. No introduction, just deafening noise and no volume control to turn it to an acceptable level. That being said, I did begin watching a second video by Ed Miller which did have a good introduction. However even in Ed's video the sound quality was poor, there is a ton of interference in the background. In both videos I attempted to watch, the sound was hollow and empty, probably the result of poor microphones and little effort being put into fixing the problem before the video was published.

At deucescracked, things are very different. The sound quality is excellent, there is no background noise, and best of all there is actually a volume control. Videos also begin with a proper introduction and the commentators don't fight each other to get a word in.

I hope my small sample isn't a representation of all the videos on Stox, as I have heard good things about this site.

P.S. I note after watching a 3rd video by Colin Moshman that he has a good microphone and talks clearly (face not too close to the microphone), if other video producers could follow his example it would lead to much higher quality videos for everybody.

The multiple commentary video that you are complaining about is actually one of our best recieved at stoxpoker. When we have 3 coaches commentating on the same video in realtime (myself, kyle and bryce) and you can read the reviews of that video here (by the way - probably a more constructive idea to post your audio complaint in the specific video) there is no way around the fact that we have to use a different microphone and some coaches will talk over each other.

All coaches recieve a standard issue mic, but multiple commentary ones can't use that mic as it's a headset. Many of our subscribers love the multiple coaches commentary videos but if you don't just watch all of the single commentary ones.

I was not raising as issue with the quality of teaching in any of the videos, I am sure that having multiple coaches adds a new level of insight into any video. I was saying it would have maybe been nice to turn off the TV and start the video with a proper introduction.

I've enjoyed Ed's video thus far, though there is still static in the background which could have surely been avoided.

As for the streaming player, the absense of volume control is pretty ridiculous.

you didnt watch much of the video - the TV gets turned off at 1:16 on the vid. The recording was started early (see below as to why).

as for volume on streaming, our flash replayer is proprietary (i.e. we coded and built it ourselves) and volume control is on the list. There are many things on our current programming list though so I cannot say when it will be completed.

The reason for no official intro in that particular video is because we came upon an interesting hand just as we were setting up so for the sake of getting more content into the video I quickly started the recording and went straight into the analysis.

Personally, I agree that the video in question was pretty atrocious in terms of production value and was surprised when it was as well received as it was. When I was down in California we'd produced a few group videos, this being the first one, and I had suggested scrapping it. It's unique, however, in that it's the only cluster@#$$ like that in our library.

Ok ty for the responses guys, I'll have to watch a few more videos before I can really comment on this issue.

Today I made a post about the same issue at the Stox forums. From a professional training site I would like to expect professional production quality. Especially Nick's videos tend to suffer from loud static hum, distortion and echo that really make the videos unpleasant to watch. I just finished watching one of Bryce's recent videos and the sound quality in that one was very nice. If Colin finally got his mic out of his mouth then I bet his new video sounds pretty good too. :P

Like I said in my other post, these things are very easy to fix with the use of a proper sound card and by positioning the mic correctly.

Watched a couple more videos today, the sound was 1-2 seconds out of sync in both of them...

(Kyle heads-up at Eurolinx
Released: 2008-03-16)

(NL Hold'em at Eurolinx with Blake Lovely
Released: 2008-04-13)

The volume also got steadily lower throughout Kyle's video.

my first 70 or whatever videos were made using a microphone on a logitech camera, i have switched to a headset mic with nooise canceling so y more recent stuff should be high quality, if it is not I'll have to look at changing microphones again.

Way Ahead/Way Behind and Inducing Bluffs

Released: 2008-01-23
Video #259
Author: Nick Grudzien
Format: Session
Game: Limit Holdem
Type: 6 max
Poker Site: Eurolinx

That's the one I watched today with very poor sound. I checked out one you posted about a month ago and it was a lot better.

As counterintuitive as it seems, we'd actually like for you guys to keep posting specific videos and their specific problems, as it helps us whittle out the individual problems. We're actually doing an entire re-render right now (new video codec) which should also clean up the few videos in the last 100 or so that had lag issues. We have two experienced technicians producing these now, so major issues from here on in means I get to bust heads, though sometimes it may be a coach's head

Video 373 is ridiculously quiet. It's getting really annoying having to mess with the volume everytime I watch differente videos ;(

Is it not possible to just normalize the audio on all videos so they're all exactly the same volume?

The volume on this video has been increased previously and I'm not too sure if why it is still quiet - it may be that the sound distorted when being increased too far. That being said I will look into this now and see if I can increase the volume further (I assure you there are no videos recently released or moving forward that will ever have audio issues like this).