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Google Meet rolls out multi-device adaptive audio merging

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Re: Google Meet rolls out multi-device adaptive audio merging

#111

Post by [deleted] »

varispeed wrote: post #101
crazygringo wrote: post #77

I just want to say that this is really actually kind of mind-blowing from an audio engineering perspective. Outputting audio from multiple laptops in the same room is easy. Perfectly syncing it is harder. Implementing echo cancellation across all of that is quite a bit trickier than regular single-device echo cancellation. But then treating all the laptop microphones as a kind of microphone array, having to deal with…

Also imagine that 44.1kHz on one laptop will not equal 44.1kHz on another or one can run at 96kHz and others on 44.1kHz etc. that means everything has to be dynamically resampled in realtime whilst preserving quality and low latency.

[deleted]

Re: Google Meet rolls out multi-device adaptive audio merging

#112

Post by paul7986 »

crazygringo wrote: post #77

I just want to say that this is really actually kind of mind-blowing from an audio engineering perspective. Outputting audio from multiple laptops in the same room is easy. Perfectly syncing it is harder. Implementing echo cancellation across all of that is quite a bit trickier than regular single-device echo cancellation. But then treating all the laptop microphones as a kind of microphone array, having to deal with…

[flagged]

Re: Google Meet rolls out multi-device adaptive audio merging

#113

Post by nh2 »

I want a simpler feature:

Auto-detect people not using headphones, and prevent them from speaking. Until they put some one.

Ideally showing them some customisable scolding message.

So far, any feedback / echo cancellation I've encountered just makes everybody's life miserable. Degradation to non-duplex voice (because all except the loudest speaker are attenuated down), "seaside noise" effect", etc.

This is the reason why a phone call over GSM or landline still often "feels" better than any HD video call with people on screens: Low-latency duplex audio.

Most* of this goes away if you just wear headphones.

Maybe this can be fixed by making the algorithm way more complicated, as the announced feature does. But I'd be surprised.

[*]: "Most": 2 people with headphones sitting near each other still cause echoes for each other and other participants. Fixing that is truly novel, and needed even for headphone users.

Re: Google Meet rolls out multi-device adaptive audio merging

#115

Post by maliker »

nh2 wrote: post #113

I want a simpler feature: Auto-detect people not using headphones, and prevent them from speaking. Until they put some one. Ideally showing them some customisable scolding message. So far, any feedback / echo cancellation I've encountered just makes everybody's life miserable. Degradation to non-duplex voice (because all except the loudest speaker are attenuated down), "seaside noise" effect", etc. This is the reason…

And then there's another nag prompt if bluetooth headphones/mic are detected. The latency on those things can get horrendous, up to like 300 ms.

Re: Google Meet rolls out multi-device adaptive audio merging

#116

Post by ChuckMcM »

kccqzy wrote: post #96
ChuckMcM wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which is why I don't use Meet.

That's exactly the reason I use Meet. I don't want native code execution; I want sandboxed JavaScript code execution.

That's fair. Everyone comes to these sorts of positions with a stack of values[1]. How that stack is ordered often determines one's choices.

One of the interesting things for me from a technological perspective is whether or not we're converging on what the ideal set of features for a "video phone" would be. If there was a broad enough consensus on the core feature set I would hope an 'appliance' version would be available which would eliminate needing to use a general purpose processor (and all the risks that entails) for this sort of meeting.

[1] From your response I infer that you value "no native code" and "sandboxed javascript" highly which guides you to the choice to use Meet, vs someone who might stack "User Experience" more highly than those two and end up at a different choice.

Re: Google Meet rolls out multi-device adaptive audio merging

#117

Post by refulgentis »

jeffrallen wrote: post #97
crazygringo wrote: post #77

I just want to say that this is really actually kind of mind-blowing from an audio engineering perspective. Outputting audio from multiple laptops in the same room is easy. Perfectly syncing it is harder. Implementing echo cancellation across all of that is quite a bit trickier than regular single-device echo cancellation. But then treating all the laptop microphones as a kind of microphone array, having to deal with…

If you were doing this kind of multipath and array signal processing on RF signals, it would be covered by ITAR. And yet Google can ship it anywhere on the planet via HTTPS and webasm... Things that make you go hmm.

I have a very strong feeling this is more marketing BS than 100% solved technical achievement. (disclaimer: xoogler, no inside info, just familiar with recent Google and separately, audio processing)

Re: Google Meet rolls out multi-device adaptive audio merging

#118

Post by nh2 »

maliker wrote: post #115
nh2 wrote: post #113

I want a simpler feature: Auto-detect people not using headphones, and prevent them from speaking. Until they put some one. Ideally showing them some customisable scolding message. So far, any feedback / echo cancellation I've encountered just makes everybody's life miserable. Degradation to non-duplex voice (because all except the loudest speaker are attenuated down), "seaside noise" effect", etc. This is the reason…

And then there's another nag prompt if bluetooth headphones/mic are detected. The latency on those things can get horrendous, up to like 300 ms.

Exactly!

I was shocked to learn that the latency from laptop to ear is higher than to the other side of the planet.

Most people don't notice the adverse psychological aspects of this:

People get really annoyed by when constantly talking over each other. It subconciously makes you dread talking to the other person.

When everybody is using wired headphones, you suddenly like your coworkers more!

Re: Google Meet rolls out multi-device adaptive audio merging

#119

Post by paulryanrogers »

varispeed wrote: post #103
nevir wrote: post #5

Meet, to me, is the perfect balance of functionality and simplicity (as an end user). And features like this only make that more apparent. Zoom and Teams always frustrate me, even though they're what I use far more often. It's too bad that video conferencing is largely a game of who has the most boxes checked - IT admins and A/V folk are the ones that need to be convinced, and Meet just doesn't ...meet... their needs

The organisation I worked at used Meet until someone from Microsoft convinced them to use Teams. Such a nightmare. Quality of meetings went downhill and employees were penalised for secretly using Meet for ad hoc meetings.

> employees were penalised for secretly using Meet for ad hoc meetings.

Why would someone ever be secretly punished?

Re: Google Meet rolls out multi-device adaptive audio merging

#120

Post by paulryanrogers »

pquki4 wrote: post #54
nradov wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This isn't an area where simplicity wins. Zoom is targeted more towards professional use whereas Meet is more for casual or social use. It doesn't really support multiple displays, like I can't watch screen sharing on one display while moving the chat and video windows off to another display. Scaling options for screen sharing are inadequate and it doesn't even support real full screen display. Meet lacks advanced au…

I think because Meet is fully browser based, some of the features like sharing audio with screen are only available via chrome or chromium based browsers -- definitely not on Firefox in my own testing. I don't know the exact reason for that, but it's kind of sad.

I use Firefox with Meet to screen share and talk all the time. Perhaps you mean it didn't use the GPU until recently.
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