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Project Starline: Feel like you're there, together

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Re: Project Starline: Feel like you're there, together

#281

Post by Trollmann »

Pxtl wrote: post #134
sneak wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Zoom lag is an issue with Zoom, not the network generally. If you actually do wired, p2p on the same side of the same continent you can get rid of most of the lag. Current lag comes from services that aren't p2p and bad networks (e.g. wifi).

Yeah, I honestly hate how much Zoom has won because I've found it's the worst for latency. I have a mumble server running on a pi that blows the doors off Zoom for audio-quality and latency but it's unusable for casual groups because nobody wants to wear a headset and feedback destroys it.

Mumble beats nearly all service‘s in latency and audio quality because these two things are the problems it‘s trying to solve. Did you ever play around with Teamspeak? It‘s a bit worse on the latency side but more mainstream friendly. Personally I run a mumble server as well because it solves our problems but TS may be worth looking into for you.

Re: Project Starline: Feel like you're there, together

#282

Post by mensetmanusman »

scoopertrooper wrote: post #260
kbenson wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doubtful, IMO. The fact that you need it to be both extremely low latency and with essentially zero compression artifacts (probably lossless, based on their goal). If the numbers listed here[1] are correct, then the most efficient lossy codec at that time was doing 100 minutes of 8k video in ~37GB of data. From that we can intuit that it was using an average of 50 Mbps for that 100 minutes of video. For the most effi…

There have been great strides made in ai compression in recent years. I wonder if they are going to leverage that. https://blogs.nvidia.com/blog/2020/10/05/gan-video-conferenc... https://ai.googleblog.com/2021/02/lyra-new-very-low-bitrate-... https://aibots.my/officialBlog/deepminds-ai-agent-muzero-cou...

I think this is what will be done in the future. You will interact with the camera for 15 minutes or so and it will create a custom compreasion algorithm for you.

Re: Project Starline: Feel like you're there, together

#283

Post by fomine3 »

Aeolun wrote: post #243
cogman10 wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed, 10Mbps is likely where it'll be, probably less. If I were to guess, they are going to apply a lot of smarts to texture mapping to avoid needing a lot of bandwidth.

That seems unlikely. My game stream in 1080p at 60fps already takes 40Mbps. So 4K at 30fps would need more like 80Mbps, and 8K 320Mbps

It heavily depends on what encoder and config you use. In my experience, 20Mbps (or less) HEVC by Turing NVEnc realtime encoder is enough for 1080 60p. Also halving frame rate won't halve bitrate because of how video compressed by reference frame. Also video meeting won't move pictures as much as FPS gaming.

Re: Project Starline: Feel like you're there, together

#284

Post by georgewfraser »

I have always wanted to try setting up a low-tech version of this, where instead of using a light-field display, you assume that you have only one viewer and you simply render the correct point of view on the screen. This is the same technique used to shoot The Mandalorian [1], but in this case we're only trying to make a "pane of glass" so an ordinary high-res TV will do. With both participants positioned correctly, you will get correct accommodation, vergence, and parallax depth cues---only stereopsis is missing, and stereopsis is much less important than people think. 1/3 of people don't even have good stereo vision! [2]

As long as you're willing to give up stereopsis, and you have only 1 viewer on each side, I think you could accomplish this type of immersive telepresence with an ordinary TV + software.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ufp8weYYDE8 [2] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4934608/

Re: Project Starline: Feel like you're there, together

#285

Post by flowerlad »

bellyfullofbac wrote: post #178
hirundo wrote: post #49

My dad used to tell a story about my grandfather's first experience with television in the late forties. There was a buxom woman on the screen, and he walked up to it, trying to look down her cleavage. It didn't work. Does Starline give you a different view when you change your perspective? It looks like it does to some extent. If so, it might work before long, but grandpa died about fifty years too soon for it.

On the topic of buxom women, my first thought about this tech was, it'll be the next frontier for OnlyFans/porn accounts on Snapchat. Before you laugh or be prude, porn content was what made VHS and BluRay succeed (or are these urban legends?) and they were pioneers in stuff like online video streaming.

Does Starline include haptic gloves?

Re: Project Starline: Feel like you're there, together

#286

Post by bullfightonmars »

ipsum2 wrote: post #81
bullfightonmars wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If this was a consumer product I would buy two of these today, one for myself, and one for my parents. It is more compelling that any product I have seen for a long time.

How much would you pay? I expect the lower end to be around $20,000 from hardware alone, plus at least gigabit down/up connectivity.

Well that wouldn't be a consumer product then. But I would pay as much as a high end tv. 2500? Maybe more? The experience looks to be transformative.

Re: Project Starline: Feel like you're there, together

#287

Post by sangnoir »

whymauri wrote: post #225
interestica wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hate to say it but my first impression of this was that it looked like a visiting area for a prison. (Something about the bleak colour palette and minimalist display). But, I think that presents a similar long-distance use-case as the 'phone booth.' I wouldn't be surprised to see this as a pay-per-use option for prisoners/families. It's probably only a matter of time before the 'Echo Shows' capitalize on it.

it would certainly sit comfortably in a black mirror episode, lol.

A fantastic twist would be a reveal showing that the other person (no longer) exists in the real world and is digital construct... or some forbidden knowledge is secretly interdicted and censored by big brother, body-snatching peoples avatars in real time.

Re: Project Starline: Feel like you're there, together

#288

Post by sangnoir »

paxys wrote: post #60
tomduncalf wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seconded, I’ve really enjoyed all of Ted Chiang’s books and wish he was more prolific as I’ve read them all! An excellent writer and I think his style would appeal to the HN crowd as it’s kind of sci-fi, kind of based in science, and many of his stories are quite thought provoking and unique. Also they’re all short stories so great if you struggle finding time to take on a whole book or whatever!

I recently read Exhalation, and was blown away by how engaging and thought provoking the stories were. Would highly recommend it to anyone with even a passing, high-level interest in sci-fi.

To those who want to read a sample of the anthology, the complete titular short story ("Exhalation") can be read online for free: https://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/fiction/exhalation/

It is 6552 words long.

Re: Project Starline: Feel like you're there, together

#289

Post by serf »

imiric wrote: post #232
suyash wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly, it's just a fancy FaceTime technology, I would be bored after few days. Tell me a problem that it solves.

> Tell me a problem that it solves. Replicating the experience of in-person communication much more closely than video and 2D displays will ever do. That's a noble research goal if nothing else, I don't get the skepticism. There are several reasons 3D content and previous generation displays didn't take off, but there's no reason to believe a revolutionary new approach and product couldn't change this (e.g. electric…

> (e.g. electric cars were invented in the 19th century and are only now becoming popular)

I hate this example, and it's like one of the most common ones on HN.

As said by thousands of people and many documentaries before me , the electric car had numerous real conspiracies working against it, some of which were the most powerful financial groups in the world.[0]

The 'electric car' wasn't made popular and possible by recent technological strides -- although it was made better.

The success and popularity of the electric vehicle was made possible by financial shifts away from petroleum exploration, facilitated by dwindling profits and increased scarcity of oil, and encouraged by a movement towards sustainability both from the social culture of the world and the various actions of government from country to country.

Yes, range has improved. Yes, the cars are more intelligent and better to drive -- but these improvements have been seen across the automotive industry since its' inception with ICE based vehicles included.

The real motivating factor behind the electric car is the environment that now exists that allows such endeavors to be profitable -- an environment that not only includes technological improvements like you hint towards, but more importantly it's an environment that fosters development of such things due to the existence of a profit incentive and increased governmental-body cooperation.

All that said, unless Cisco is even more evil than I realized (woah..), I have a hard time presuming that video conferencing has been held back by the same sort of conspiratorial under-handed back-office dealings that slowed the progress of EV adoption.

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Who_Killed_the_Electric_Car%3F

Re: Project Starline: Feel like you're there, together

#290

Post by throwaway3699 »

ghaff wrote: post #229
sneak wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm right there with you, and I use a 4k camera and a boom mic and headphones and wired ethernet to videoconference now: I have been regularly complaining about the low resolution and framerates of current videoconferencing systems (10-15fps, 720p, low bitrate - and that's the highest quality setting available!). If Google wanted to make me believe they care about videoconferencing quality, they'd have a 4k 60fps opt…

And most people won't have wired gigabit and can't,

They will eventually. Hopefully the ISP monopolies are broken again.
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