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Creating ad hoc microphone arrays from personal devices (2019)

microsoft.com

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Re: Creating ad hoc microphone arrays from personal devices (2019)

#31

Post by jcims »

kick wrote: post #14
itchyjunk wrote: post #7

There are obvious(?) privacy issues and what not here. But ignoring all that for a second, it does sound pretty cool to be able to leverage all the little computers we walk around with. Think of all those shitty little video clips people take at a concert. Could all those be combined to make some high quality panoramic video? Probably a lot of other cool applications that I can't even comprehend for now. What a time…

Panoramic no (panoramas work on a single axis), but interesting despite that. One of the applications for a thing like that would be creating 3D environments of concerts and other historical events that were fairly accurate from any angle, though, which could have some pretty interesting effects (could you imagine how interesting it would be if you could watch old concerts of dead artists, or a politician's speech fr…

The word(s) for your 3d application is photogrammetry and/or videogrammetry.

Re: Creating ad hoc microphone arrays from personal devices (2019)

#33

Post by kick »

jcims wrote: post #31
kick wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Panoramic no (panoramas work on a single axis), but interesting despite that. One of the applications for a thing like that would be creating 3D environments of concerts and other historical events that were fairly accurate from any angle, though, which could have some pretty interesting effects (could you imagine how interesting it would be if you could watch old concerts of dead artists, or a politician's speech fr…

The word(s) for your 3d application is photogrammetry and/or videogrammetry.

Thank you!

Re: Creating ad hoc microphone arrays from personal devices (2019)

#34

Post by gregmac »

vxNsr wrote: post #28
crazygringo wrote: post #6

This is a really interesting technical concept. Capturing high-quality audio in a meeting room for videoconferencing is a notoriously complicated problem. Microphones are crazy sensitive and pick up things like footsteps and conversations outside the door, shuffling feet and tapping on keyboards, and construction and HVAC noise like you wouldn't believe. So filtering those things out, and then capturing the best qual…

> And it's well-known that the "bowling alley" visual of meeting participants (camera at the end of a long conference table) isn't ideal. If each participant has their own laptop camera on themselves, it could be a vastly better experience for remote participants. My company pushes us to have any conference that will include remote people from our desks, even if some or most of the attendees are in the same physical…

Yeah, this is just a much better way to conduct meetings.

I've been in many meeting rooms where there's a single projector/tv, and the person controlling it only shows either the remote cameras OR their screen (while they're sharing), so that isolates the remote people even more. (I've also been the remote person in this situation, and it definitely feels more like being an occasionally noisy fly on the wall then a full participant).

Everyone also gets their full desktop (big/multiple monitors, full keyboard, etc).

It'll be interesting to see what happens post-lockdown.. will the people miss the benefits of "one remote = all remote" and have more empathy for remote people, or will we go back to the same old?

Re: Creating ad hoc microphone arrays from personal devices (2019)

#35

Post by crazygringo »

Zenst wrote: post #20
crazygringo wrote: post #6

This is a really interesting technical concept. Capturing high-quality audio in a meeting room for videoconferencing is a notoriously complicated problem. Microphones are crazy sensitive and pick up things like footsteps and conversations outside the door, shuffling feet and tapping on keyboards, and construction and HVAC noise like you wouldn't believe. So filtering those things out, and then capturing the best qual…

> Capturing high-quality audio in a meeting room for videoconferencing is a notoriously complicated problem Not from my experience of 20 years ago setting up VC systems, biggest issue was video and making sure lighting was good, and plane wall behind (sky blue was good colour for that). Audio wise, was many desk standing mic's (can't recall main brand) but was a few. Did have one issue once with setting up a connecti…

What I meant was it's a complicated problem for the software and microphone engineers. Not for installation! :)

Re: Creating ad hoc microphone arrays from personal devices (2019)

#36

Post by vxNsr »

gregmac wrote: post #34
vxNsr wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And it's well-known that the "bowling alley" visual of meeting participants (camera at the end of a long conference table) isn't ideal. If each participant has their own laptop camera on themselves, it could be a vastly better experience for remote participants. My company pushes us to have any conference that will include remote people from our desks, even if some or most of the attendees are in the same physical…

Yeah, this is just a much better way to conduct meetings. I've been in many meeting rooms where there's a single projector/tv, and the person controlling it only shows either the remote cameras OR their screen (while they're sharing), so that isolates the remote people even more. (I've also been the remote person in this situation, and it definitely feels more like being an occasionally noisy fly on the wall then a f…

> It'll be interesting to see what happens post-lockdown.. will the people miss the benefits of "one remote = all remote" and have more empathy for remote people, or will we go back to the same old?

I think it'll be like everything that could be learned during this time, someone has to recognize the lesson and actively work to implement it.

My main issue with using my desk is that I normally keep my laptop closed and off to the side, so if I just open it the view of me is in profile and doesn't look like I'm paying any attention, IT is loath to buy an external webcam for anyone because "every laptop comes with a webcam," luckily I was able to source a spare one they had. But I know that most of the desks are set up the same way as mine, so most people either choose to use their laptop screen as the main monitor or just don't enable video for the call.

Re: Creating ad hoc microphone arrays from personal devices (2019)

#37

Post by dannypgh »

stuaxo wrote: post #29

Oh, I wanted this years ago when phones had terrible microphones and audio codes. The idea was that at a gig loads of people would record and you could reconstruct a much better recording.

I'd assume a lot of the losses would be the same across all devices - e.g. GSM and associated preprocessing will result in dynamic compression in a uniform way regardless of placement, no? It's an interesting idea but it seems like you'd need a mixture of different compression types.

Re: Creating ad hoc microphone arrays from personal devices (2019)

#38

Post by crazygringo »

eeZah7Ux wrote: post #17
crazygringo wrote: post #6

This is a really interesting technical concept. Capturing high-quality audio in a meeting room for videoconferencing is a notoriously complicated problem. Microphones are crazy sensitive and pick up things like footsteps and conversations outside the door, shuffling feet and tapping on keyboards, and construction and HVAC noise like you wouldn't believe. So filtering those things out, and then capturing the best qual…

> it's an insanely hard problem Not much: each participant has a pair of (amplitude, phase) values for each microphone. Filtering human voices and correlating sources to find the phase is not new.

That's not how amplitude and phase work, you don't "set them" on a microphone.

Filtering sources isn't new, of course, and doing it manually fiddling around with a recording you already made is one thing.

But doing it in automatically in real-time on equipment with unknown characteristics that leaves zero ghost signal behind... is, yes, insanely hard.

Re: Creating ad hoc microphone arrays from personal devices (2019)

#40

Post by eeZah7Ux »

crazygringo wrote: post #38
eeZah7Ux wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it's an insanely hard problem Not much: each participant has a pair of (amplitude, phase) values for each microphone. Filtering human voices and correlating sources to find the phase is not new.

That's not how amplitude and phase work, you don't "set them" on a microphone. Filtering sources isn't new, of course, and doing it manually fiddling around with a recording you already made is one thing. But doing it in automatically in real-time on equipment with unknown characteristics that leaves zero ghost signal behind... is, yes, insanely hard.

> That's not how amplitude and phase work, you don't "set them" on a microphone.

I never said you "set them". The obviously are a product of the location of the microphone in relation to the speaker.

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