Can we send two parallel streams of video and audio and then at the receiver, pick each packet selectively? If a new packet arrives in either of the streams, pick it if it is the latest, and discard it if we already got one with the same id..Something one the lines of adding redundancy to compensate for the poor connection?
Ask HN: What's preventing us from achieving seamless video communication?
51–60 of 64 posts
Re: Ask HN: What's preventing us from achieving seamless video communication?
#52Latency SLAs are what’s missing: “No packets shall be lost, and latency shall not fluctuate”.
Classical phone lines worked so well because there is never latency. You might get static, but we’re adapted for listening through static. But you never get timing disruptions.
Videoconferencing is a black art of trying to smooth over tiny latencies that the human brain is wired to be extraordinarily sensitive to. People read too much into a single lost packet.
This same problem applies to VR - if the latency is not rigorously consistent, people vomit.
It is possible to design a network that connects two people reliably and with predictable latency - last century’s landline phone network stands as proof. Until someone builds a network that offers the same level of service for videoconferencing, it will continue to be a tool of last resort.
Re: Ask HN: What's preventing us from achieving seamless video communication?
#53Low-latency packet video can work incredibly well over a dependable network connection (with a known constant throughput and no jitter), low end-to-end per-packet latency, and good isolation between everybody's microphone and speaker. This was mostly solved in the 1990s. A lot of what makes Skype/Facetime/WebRTC/Chrome suck are the compromises and complexity inherent in trying to do the best you can do for when these…
I remember good old Skype from like 3, 4 years ago that didn't use to suck at this so much, at least on the audio side. When the network connection was really bad, it used something like phone quality, when it was good, the quality was closer to Face Time. You could hear the quality shift dynamically when network conditions were changing (i.e. someone starting a download). I really enjoyed talking on Skype back then,…
Why do you believe the quality is going backwards? Is there something they are optimizing for the compromise in quality?
Re: Ask HN: What's preventing us from achieving seamless video communication?
#54Here’s my question: why is video conferencing designed such that when the video drops out or lags, so does the audio ? I never (or very less often) have problems with simple VOIP. Why not make a video chat client that treats the audio as a first class citizen, and then displays the video if it happens to be coming through clearly? Is re-syncing the streams too hard? This seems like a fix that would make the experienc…
I think Skype already might be doing something like this. The audio passes through ok when the screen feed freezes due to network congestion
Re: Ask HN: What's preventing us from achieving seamless video communication?
#55Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I am pretty sure that I can do a high quality FaceTime call with a number of people. A number of people that could afford $1000+ to be able to use that platform. I personally wouldn't consider this problem to be technically-solved until an Android that can barely be considered as a mid-ranger can do it.
I wouldn't expect a mid-ranger phone to be fast and completely reliable. That's why it's just a mid-ranger. The price is a compromise; you get shitty radio hardware and shitty software so you get shitty videoconferencing.
Is a mid-range phone today worse than a high end phone 5 years ago? Because the hardware at the high end 5 years ago could handle it decently iirc. Though it really depended on your internet connection, latency and other issues much more than the hardware on the device really.
For the most part, given the margins at the high end, it's not significantly better.
Re: Ask HN: What's preventing us from achieving seamless video communication?
#561. Check out this recent comment thread from a few days ago for an entry point to learning about numerous performance bounds caused by both design limitations and extremely long standing feature gaps in the computer network protocols we nowadays use for global communications (I intentionally avoid the term "Internet" here, because, as one can hopefully gleam from the content linked to there, that name seems undeservi…
The talk starts at around 42:32 in the fourth video.
Re: Ask HN: What's preventing us from achieving seamless video communication?
#57Low-latency packet video can work incredibly well over a dependable network connection (with a known constant throughput and no jitter), low end-to-end per-packet latency, and good isolation between everybody's microphone and speaker. This was mostly solved in the 1990s. A lot of what makes Skype/Facetime/WebRTC/Chrome suck are the compromises and complexity inherent in trying to do the best you can do for when these…
Thank you for making mosh!
Re: Ask HN: What's preventing us from achieving seamless video communication?
#58Related question: why does Netflix provide a so much better video streaming service than a short-distance VoIP session? (I say short-distance because Netflix obviously uses a content distribution network of some kind; not taking this into account would make the comparison unfair).
because Netflix has no time constraints.
Re: Ask HN: What's preventing us from achieving seamless video communication?
#59Low-latency packet video can work incredibly well over a dependable network connection (with a known constant throughput and no jitter), low end-to-end per-packet latency, and good isolation between everybody's microphone and speaker. This was mostly solved in the 1990s. A lot of what makes Skype/Facetime/WebRTC/Chrome suck are the compromises and complexity inherent in trying to do the best you can do for when these…
Are there any video chat platforms that just assume a good network quality (or have an option for such) so in the happy case there's less latency?
Re: Ask HN: What's preventing us from achieving seamless video communication?
#60Let's start by getting seamless audio communication. It's too much focus on video, when deficient audio has a greater impact on rapport. Even an old school land line phone gives a more fluid conversation than modern video conferencing. The trouble is, mainstream conferencing solutions are challenged by customers who expect great audio out of poorly spec'd rooms and microphones. The result is too much 'masking' poor i…
The microphones and speakers in an analog landline phone are not high end either, but they still sound amazing compared to Zoom.