Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Ask HN: What's preventing us from achieving seamless video communication?

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 64 posts

Re: Ask HN: What's preventing us from achieving seamless video communication?

#21

Post by r3bl »

chvid wrote: post #19

That people don't really want it. As far I can see it is possible and good enough today with Skype, FaceTime and so on plus a good internet connection; yet people prefer email, chat, telephone ... I think that is what is holding it back and because of the lack of demand there is not really big investment in create hardware and software to support it.

I believe it's a chicken and egg problem. I know I would rely on video way more if my first sentence in every video call didn't have to be "can you hear me?"

Re: Ask HN: What's preventing us from achieving seamless video communication?

#22

Post by thefounder »

You need deterministic performance. There is a standard for that named AVB[0] but it requires avb compliant switches/hubs. It's used in pro, live, home audio and corporate environments with great success. In a perfect world the internet(at least the wired internet) would be avb compliant.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Audio_Video_Bridging

Re: Ask HN: What's preventing us from achieving seamless video communication?

#23

Post by chvid »

r3bl wrote: post #21
chvid wrote: post #19

That people don't really want it. As far I can see it is possible and good enough today with Skype, FaceTime and so on plus a good internet connection; yet people prefer email, chat, telephone ... I think that is what is holding it back and because of the lack of demand there is not really big investment in create hardware and software to support it.

I believe it's a chicken and egg problem. I know I would rely on video way more if my first sentence in every video call didn't have to be "can you hear me?"

The eggs have been there for a long time and plenty of chickens has been hatched; but noone is eating them.

I am pretty sure that I can do a high quality FaceTime call with a number of people.

Yet still I prefer doing a regular phone call. As so does just about everyone else. The question you should ask is: Why is that?

It is not a technical problem.

Re: Ask HN: What's preventing us from achieving seamless video communication?

#24

Post by zbuf »

Let'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 inputs with software that now we all feel totally disconnected with why the system as a whole just isn't working well.

(A small plug for my own focus on audio; cleanfeed.net, which is WebRTC-based with some additional magic)

Re: Ask HN: What's preventing us from achieving seamless video communication?

#25

Post by plaidfuji »

Here’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 experience so much better without having to put more data through any network.

Re: Ask HN: What's preventing us from achieving seamless video communication?

#26

Post by plaidfuji »

plaidfuji wrote: post #25

Here’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 basically do this already for crucial video conferences: I call in on my phone as well as laptop and keep the phone audio on standby for the inevitable dropouts

Re: Ask HN: What's preventing us from achieving seamless video communication?

#27

Post by plaidfuji »

zbuf wrote: post #24

Let'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…

I’m sayin!!!

Re: Ask HN: What's preventing us from achieving seamless video communication?

#28

Post by asymmetric »

hideo wrote: post #11
lazyeye wrote: post #4

Someone needs to design vidconf hardware where (somehow) the camera is in the middle of the screen so you are looking directly into each other's eyes.

This exists in several forms ranging from TelePrompTer style settings to cameras embedded in the screen. They’re currently expensive but I’d expect to see them hitting the market in the next 5-10 years. There are also software/post-processing implementations of this out there which try to emulate eye contact. The ones I saw 4-5 years ago were definitely uncanny valley but there may be more happening there of late. Th…

> cameras embedded in the screen

Seems like a privacy nightmare. You can’t have a hardware toggle to close the camera nor cover it with a piece of tape.

Re: Ask HN: What's preventing us from achieving seamless video communication?

#29

Post by berbec »

asymmetric wrote: post #28
hideo wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This exists in several forms ranging from TelePrompTer style settings to cameras embedded in the screen. They’re currently expensive but I’d expect to see them hitting the market in the next 5-10 years. There are also software/post-processing implementations of this out there which try to emulate eye contact. The ones I saw 4-5 years ago were definitely uncanny valley but there may be more happening there of late. Th…

> cameras embedded in the screen Seems like a privacy nightmare. You can’t have a hardware toggle to close the camera nor cover it with a piece of tape.

The Librem guys are making hardware with power switches for camera, GPS, etc. [1]

1: https://puri.sm/posts/lockdown-mode-on-the-librem-5-beyond-h...

Re: Ask HN: What's preventing us from achieving seamless video communication?

#30

Post by amelius »

Related 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).
Post reply on HN