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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

#241

Post by ben_w »

dijit wrote: post #236
Fanmade wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In our region, some people have devices to repel moles or marten using "Sounds that are inaudible for humans". I have yet to come near to one of these devices that I can't hear. And it's not only me, my wife can also hear them, as well as my daughter. I also know some people who can't hear anything from these devices, but it feels like the statistics about what people can hear and what not are not that up to date.

Agreed. My mother thinks I'm lying. I will admit I feel a little bit special that I can hear her motion activated cat-poop repeller thing. I visited her recently and wasn't sure if I had finally aged out of my sensitive ears (34 now) or if her batteries needed to be replaced. FWIW I wonder if people do not experience physical pain from certain sounds, because people seem to be totally fine with sirens but it feels li…

When I was a teenager, the applause from the end of year school talent show caused me physical pain — enough that the teachers noticed and got me out of the hall.

This no longer seems to be the case, as I'm living right by a major junction and get random full volume sirens at least six times in the average day. I hate them, but they don't hurt.

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

#242

Post by jpc0 »

boffinAudio wrote: post #210
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…

I agree that this is amazing - but what I don't like about it, is the fact that a 3rd party is doing this, when it should really be a built-in feature of the operating system - or at least, be implemented as close to the device as possible . From what I can glean from this breathless press release, this functionality requires a fair bit of cloud ... anathema to audio professionals, but maybe not so, the professional…

How would you do this on the os?

I would honestly try to sync audio output based on a shared time reference, something along the lines of what AES67/Ravenna/Dante does but you can be a little more lax and use ntp or system time since you don't need to be sample accurate.

For the microphones that would be a little harder but you should be aware it's not that tough since a few high end manufacturers have phased microphone arrays for videoconferencing. You could probably get close though but the fact is you need the audio from all the sources in a single location for processing and do phase analysis on it and possibly find an optimal delay for each by checking the group delay.

The advantage they have is some latency is acceptable and they don't need to do it on a low power device.

I don't see what this has to do with Gemini but maybe that's just marketing...

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

#243

Post by hugocbp »

Amazing!

I don't trust Google with barely anything these days anymore (except Gmail just because it has been so long, and Maps), but Google Meet is the one thing that I prefer Google's solution over anyone else's.

Meet is just so much better than Zoom, Teams, FaceTime, WhatsApp Video, etc.

I'm so glad they are tackling this specific issue. Pretty amazing feat if it works well.

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

#244

Post by azangru »

hugocbp wrote: post #243

Amazing! I don't trust Google with barely anything these days anymore (except Gmail just because it has been so long, and Maps), but Google Meet is the one thing that I prefer Google's solution over anyone else's. Meet is just so much better than Zoom, Teams, FaceTime, WhatsApp Video, etc. I'm so glad they are tackling this specific issue. Pretty amazing feat if it works well.

> Meet is just so much better than Zoom, Teams, FaceTime, WhatsApp Video, etc.

So much better? Does Meet have instruments for whiteboarding or on-screen annotation?

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

#246

Post by jasonjmcghee »

mzl wrote: post #216
albertzeyer wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I assume it's just some neural network doing the heavy lifting, or not?

My guess is that that would introduce too much latency (neural networks generally have bad latency).

DLSS has to run in some small fraction of 16ms (as everything else still needs to run in that time) to keep 60fps- granted it’s running on a GPU.

But they can be quite fast.

I wouldn’t be surprised if they were and audio is routed through a neural network before relay.

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

#247

Post by IsTom »

PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #239
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…

In a large room, perfect syncing is actually impossible since different listeners will be far enough from each other speakers to cause, at best, comb filtering, and at worst, audible delays.

I assume that if speakers are not set too loud then either you're close and the algorithm works or you're far and sound is quiet enough that it's not an issue.

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

#248

Post by weebull »

jasonjmcghee wrote: post #246
mzl wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My guess is that that would introduce too much latency (neural networks generally have bad latency).

DLSS has to run in some small fraction of 16ms (as everything else still needs to run in that time) to keep 60fps- granted it’s running on a GPU. But they can be quite fast. I wouldn’t be surprised if they were and audio is routed through a neural network before relay.

And in audio, that meets the definition of really bad latency.

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

#249

Post by cbracken »

thfuran wrote: post #234
ercan wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I used to hear the remote from TVs especially old Philips ones and LG's with the single chip on them. That was until I hit 44... after that is hit or miss or just imagining.

But weren't old remotes all IR?

Some very old remotes used what effectively amounted to high frequency tuning forks. Example: https://www.theverge.com/23810061/zenith-space-command-remot...

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

#250

Post by IsTom »

Fanmade wrote: post #228
IshKebab wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah I'm pretty sure there are plenty of adults that can hear those frequencies though. It's not like everyone reaches 18 and suddenly loses hearing. Stupid devices IMO. When they first came out I downloaded a sample audio file from the manufacturers website to see if I could hear it. I couldn't.... because they encoded it as MP3 and it was completely filtered out by the encoding! Literally an empty file.

In our region, some people have devices to repel moles or marten using "Sounds that are inaudible for humans". I have yet to come near to one of these devices that I can't hear. And it's not only me, my wife can also hear them, as well as my daughter. I also know some people who can't hear anything from these devices, but it feels like the statistics about what people can hear and what not are not that up to date.

Personally I can't hear much above 15.5 kHz and I can hear these devices, so they're not even particularly high-pitched.
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