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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

#81

Post by ipsum2 »

bullfightonmars wrote: post #51
abhv wrote: post #2

A good friend of mine at Google is the technical lead of this project (he has a Phd Princeton, and was a professor before joining Google). I've tried it in person and it was truly amazing. They used some very fancy tech when I saw the demo, so I'm thrilled it is finally being announced and possibly shared with a larger audience. Explanation of why it is amazing: It totally fools your perception. No glasses or goggles…

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.

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

#82

Post by sneak »

achow wrote: post #6

If you watch the video of it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q13CishCKXY Interesting thing to note is that they don't show the participants touching the glass pane 'separating' them, whereas for that kind of situation it would be very very natural thing to do. I guess doing so (reaching towards the 'glass pane') would make the imagery distort/degrade real fast as you would start going out of camera's FoV, which that…

A bit ironic that this promo video maxxes out in 1080p, despite YouTube supporting 4K and this tech pumping 8K+ res.

There is so much more we can do in terms of quality and immersion that we're not doing simply because bandwidth and connectivity are so low-quality and overpriced at most of our leaf nodes in the USA.

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

#83

Post by yakkityyak »

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.

That would really take it to the next level if it had that feature, even with very few degrees of freedom.

The (New) Nintendo 3DS has head tracking, but it doesn't change your perspective into the view port, which gives a very dizzying effect when you deliberately test the feature.

I would imagine its possible to extrapolate perspective if they had an array (N > 2) of cameras.

This is super cool tech, and can't wait to see an array of these installed in the secret undisclosed board rooms for the illuminati.

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

#84

Post by shriphani »

tomduncalf wrote: post #68
paxys wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Same here. I’m quite picky when it comes to sci-fi, a lot of it I don’t really like, but he nails a really unique sweet spot where sci-fi is just the framing device used for some beautiful stories. Might reread his books next actually! Edit: I’d love any recommendations of other authors people think of when discussing his books. Doesn’t necessarily have to be the same style but more just that level of quality and uni…

The first story in Exhalation is written in the style of the Arabian Nights (Thousand and One Nights). Get the unabridged, original translation by Richard Burton - it is some of the most beautiful literature ever written - comes in 16 volumes so there will be no shortage of reading material!

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

#85

Post by throwaway3699 »

sneak wrote: post #78
abhv wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

NO WAY. It is impossible for me to explain how/why it works so well.

I am sure that the immersion of the experience is higher. My question (and perhaps that of GP) is: is this greater immersion actually beneficial to communication? I think this is cool tech, and valuable. I'm just not sure that it offers a communication benefit over well-lit, well-miced, wired, low latency, 8K videoconferencing. Maybe there's some 3D emotional perception face processing stuff that we have deep in our…

Being able to feel like another person in the room is enough for me to reconsider working from home. As of right now I strongly have a preference for in person, but I do acknowledge most people prefer commute and cost benefits over productivity.

The state of video conferencing today is a poor one and I'm very excited for something that can change the industry like this.

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

#86

Post by dbbk »

allenu wrote: post #30

Really cool execution. I wonder what the lag is like. I can imagine that's one thing that would break the illusion. I know with something like Zoom I've gotten used to managing the lag over time by taking turns with the other person. However, with the "live" feel of this, there could be an uncanny valley effect if the lag is subtle, but perceptible. Another thought: this is being presented as ongoing research. I wond…

If they wanted to capitalise on remote meetings, I assume they would have shown one in the demo video. Instead they focused on family members reconnecting.

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

#87

Post by sneak »

throwaway3699 wrote: post #85
sneak wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am sure that the immersion of the experience is higher. My question (and perhaps that of GP) is: is this greater immersion actually beneficial to communication? I think this is cool tech, and valuable. I'm just not sure that it offers a communication benefit over well-lit, well-miced, wired, low latency, 8K videoconferencing. Maybe there's some 3D emotional perception face processing stuff that we have deep in our…

Being able to feel like another person in the room is enough for me to reconsider working from home. As of right now I strongly have a preference for in person, but I do acknowledge most people prefer commute and cost benefits over productivity. The state of video conferencing today is a poor one and I'm very excited for something that can change the industry like this.

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 option that auto-enables in Meet if it detects everyone on the call is on wired gigabit with a 4k camera.

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

#88

Post by throwaway3699 »

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.

I doubt you need gigabit for an 8K stream. The real issue is the abysmal common network infrastructure. Latency will be a bottleneck if most ISPs don't care about treating your packets properly.

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

#89

Post by ithkuil »

defaultname wrote: post #71
wesleyy wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, that's what the lightfield does. You see different physical images depending on your angle to the screen

Fascinating. So not only is it feeding it an 8K / 30 (60?) FPS image, it's feeding it numerous incident angle variations and displaying all of them simultaneously? Sounds like a monster data rate.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23316225

> the 8K is their Input Resolution. > That resolution is then divided into the 45 viewing directions:

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

#90

Post by munk-a »

robertlagrant wrote: post #74
wizzwizz4 wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Minecraft. Linux. (Really want to write GNU, but that's not true.)

Minecraft wasn't an important technology. It's a game built with important technologies.

I disagree - I would agree that Minecraft wasn't a novel technology, just like Linux wasn't a novel technology - it was an alternative version of Minix.

Additionally Zoom isn't a novel technology, it isn't even particularly interesting technically when compared to other video conferencing solutions - but over the past year it's been incredibly important to a number of people.

I think the OC slightly missed the mark in mentioning "important technologies" instead of something closer to "technologically innovative" technologies or, more accurately (but less interesting of a statement) "expensive to develop technologies". Things that are expensive to develop generally aren't cheap to begin with, while things that are cheap to develop need to be cheap to compete with other market entrants and clones. Additionally hardware (a limiting factor on cost for a lot of technology) tends to get cheaper over time and that rate of change is accelerated by a large market of interest (leading to more folks deciding to try and iterate new designs).

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