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I'm in no way defending US internet providers, but is 5 Mbps really that low for video-conferencing? Up until late last year, my parents' connection was an ADS

I'm in no way defending US internet providers, but is 5 Mbps really that low for video-conferencing? Up until late last year, my parents' connection was an ADSL that could only do 4-5 Mbps download. I could watch 1080p videos on Amazon Prime without any issue, and the quality was much, much above what I can possibly expect a good webcam to provide. Hell, I remember watching Star Trek in 480p on a MacBook Pro Retina in bed and being impressed by how good the image quality was. I understand that real-time compression isn't as good, that movies have better cameras, lighting, etc. But that's the thing, though. Maybe instead of pushing a ton of random garbage pixels per frame, a lower resolution will be just as good. Instead of pushing for a 4K 60 fps or more webcam, let's make a damn good 720p one. Maybe add some diffuse light to it, like the Razer Kiyo. It will probably improve the perceived quality much, much more than an ultra high def one fighting with backlight and other suboptimal environment issues.

giantrobot 6y ago
I'm not saying video conferencing needs 4K 60fps video. I'm saying that 5Mbps might suffice for the shit quality video most laptops will generate, it's insufficient for the much better quality video even modest 1080p cameras will generate. Most laptops have terrible cameras. Their best output can be encoded at a few hundred Kbps and would be neigh indistinguishable from video captured by the same camera directly to disk. A good 720p or 1080p camera needs quite a bit more bandwidth to maintain good visual quality. If upstream bandwidth is constrained the software will dial back the visual quality to potato levels. For anyone that needs non-potato quality this is problematic. Cable Internet companies patting themselves on the back for handling a dozen potato streams is just sad. Not everyone is ok with such quality. In an online classroom setting, the students don't necessarily need great quality upstream video but the instructor trying to capture a white board or switch between live video and a detailed presentation does want that high quality upstream video. Video quality from streaming services is immaterial here. There's a lot of quality/bitrate tweaks that can be done with offline encoding that are not workable for real-time encoding.

giantrobot 6y ago

I'm not saying video conferencing needs 4K 60fps video. I'm saying that 5Mbps might suffice for the shit quality video most laptops will generate, it's insufficient for the much better quality video even modest 1080p cameras will generate. Most laptops have terrible cameras. Their best output can be encoded at a few hundred Kbps and would be neigh indistinguishable from video captured by the same camera directly to disk. A good 720p or 1080p camera needs quite a bit more bandwidth to maintain good visual quality. If upstream bandwidth is constrained the software will dial back the visual quality to potato levels. For anyone that needs non-potato quality this is problematic. Cable Internet companies patting themselves on the back for handling a dozen potato streams is just sad. Not everyone is ok with such quality. In an online classroom setting, the students don't necessarily need great quality upstream video but the instructor trying to capture a white board or switch between live video and a detailed presentation does want that high quality upstream video. Video quality from streaming services is immaterial here. There's a lot of quality/bitrate tweaks that can be done with offline encoding that are not workable for real-time encoding.