I have a read a good deal about this service on another board. It comes in several flavors, some paid, some hosted and some free. It is essentially a VOIP client/server that allows you to conference many people together on a single chat line. Skype has this ability too, I do not know what Skype's upper limit is. I'm thinking it is four but I can't recall for certain.
http://www.ventrilo.com/[/b]]http://www.ventrilo.com/Ventrilo is best known for it's superior sound quality and minimal use of CPU resources so as not to interfere with day to day operations of the computer or during online game competitions. It is also preferred for the simple user interface that any first time computer user can very quickly learn because the most commonly used features are immediately visible and can be activated with a single click of the mouse.
In the free version of Ventrilo cleint/server allows for 8 people to be conferenced. You can run the server yourself on Mac, Linux or Windows. You have several features like mute, volume control, and special effect placed on individual callers. The server sets up channels, that can be password protected, players can be moved between channels to have private sidebars. It is very interesting stuff. For my purposes Skype and/or the various IM voice chats suffice. Still if you play where everyone is remote, this system may be for you!
Some screen shots:
Complete Features list:Voice communication with multiple people.
Cross channel communications.
Phantom users for listening in on other channels.
User-to-user private conversations.
Individual channels that can be created dynamically.
Sub channels.
Muted channels.
Queued channels.
Channel transmit time limits.
Channel client limits.
Channel feature filtering.
Password protected server login and channels.
Advanced channel control options and filters.
Individual admin passwords for channels.
Text-to-speech (TTS) voice generation.
Key binding to execute special program functions, play wave files, send TTS messages.
Separate phonetic spelling of user and channel names for proper TTS.
Built in chat similar to IRC.
Users can enter dynamic comments for all other users to see.
User assigned names for server connections. No need to remember IP numbers.
Wave file or TTS event notifications for program events.
Remote administration of server features and current users.
Remote administration of persistent server properties.
Mute Microphone and Mute Sound with key binds for both.
User adjustable sound effects.
Persistent mute states for specific users on a given server.
Persistent channel admin passwords.
Persistent special effects including surround sound for users, channels, servers, global.
Built in server browser.
Ability to record and playback voice streams. Great for watching demos with associated voice comms.
Voice activation or Press-to-talk transmission modes.
Binds to change channels or cycle through all available channels.
Multiple platform support for servers.
Multiple platform support for clients.
Servers are now ready and supported on 64bit platforms.
The clients and servers do NOT contain any Ad Ware or Spy Ware features.
Ability to restrict server admin features. Useful for hosting services.
Server specified codec's to control voice quality and bandwidth usage.
User customization of display modes.
User customization of user list icons and toolbar icons.
Clients will soon support *NIX platforms.
Portable cross platform server.
Games the old fashioned way
Games the old fashioned way
