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Google Hangouts goes HD
- netrus 13y agoI am a huge fan of Google Hangouts, however I am pretty sure my current bottleneck is the upload speed of the people talking with me ... how realistic is it to upload HD video content in real time? [I am on all kind of European DSL connections, most of the time].
- shubb 13y agoFor a lot of people there is going to be an encode (CPU) bottleneck as well. From trying to do webcasting a while ago, I can tell you that encoding HD video in realtime on last years PCs was a major problem. Then again, it takes this kind of thing to push hardware makers and ISPs forward. If a lot of people want to use google hangouts with HD, it will create a call for internet connections with fast upload speeds (rather than a bias towards download as we see now).
- selectodude 13y agoWere you webcasting in 1080p? This only supports 720p, which will be substantially less intensive. I think my phone can encode 720p in real-time. I'm pretty sure a mid-range laptop from the last couple years can do 720p at a reasonable bitrate.
- plorkyeran 13y agoYour phone has a dedicated h264 hardware encoder. Most new computers do as well these days, but not the older ones that actually need it.
- eitally 13y agoYep. Even 2 year old machines (especially laptops) are unsuited. We have recently been testing Hangouts, Vidyo, Bluejeans, Polycom, Skype, Fuzebox.... and it was a lot of fun trying to diagnose degradation of user experience. Almost never was it network-related (except in cases with 8-10++ endpoints). It's much more common to be CPU-constrained than anything else.
- awakeasleep 13y agoI'd like to plug the logitech c920 webcam that not only has beautiful optics and a terrific auto-focus, wide viewing angle, and dual microphones, but also does the transcoding onboard.
- ZeroGravitas 13y agoWhen this was discussed on WebRTC mailing lists, it turned that basically no video-confercing software uses these encoders as a) they're not tuned for real-time usage, and b) often the software has no access to the hardware anyway.
- pthatcherg 13y agoIf you have enough upload bandwidth to send HD and they have enough download bandwidth to receive HD, at least they'll be able to see you in HD. As for if they have enough bandwidth for HD, there's only one way to find out :)
- rorrr2 13y ago1 mbit 1080p could work for many people. It's not beautiful, but it will be more or less sharp (though blocky).
- jfb 13y agoAt that data rate, you would be almost certainly better off encoding 1/4 the pixels and letting the recipient's machines upscale.
- mahyarm 13y agoI've noticed the biggest determinate in quality is actually packet loss from wireless connections. Reduce that with a wired connection and it stays very smooth. Also people prioritize clear audio way more than video. The real time part is what makes it difficult.
- zellyn 13y agoIf you hadn't seen it already, this is super useful: http://apenwarr.ca/log/?m=201304 http://apenwarr.ca/log/?m=201304
- timdorr 13y agoBitrate and resolution of a video encoding are two independent variables. I can encode 4K video at 50kbs or a 480p stream at 10mbs. That 4K stream is going to look like crap, but I can do it. They may not bump up the bitrate exactly proportionately to the increase in resolution, so the effect may not be as pronounced as you think.
- nrivadeneira 13y agoI think more interesting than the HD is the fact that they're dropping H.264 for the open sourced VP8 http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2013/08/google-hangouts-upgrading-to-hd-video-chat-switching-to-vp8-webrtc/ http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2013/08/google-hangouts-upgra...
- jrabone 13y ago...thus pissing off everyone using Hangouts for tech support to people who are only ever going to have Internet Explorer installed. Thanks a bunch, Google. I really want to crack some skulls together over the state of video compression codecs and OS support. Same thing happened with all the circle-jerking about HTML5 video - Flash had AS STANDARD a bunch of useful codecs (eg. Screen Video) for which there is no HTML5 good replacement if you want to do a lossless screencast.
- soperj 13y agoIt's a free service. They do what they want with it. I think supporting the Open Source codec is a good thing. edit: also from the article(First Paragraph) "The H.264 plugin will still be supported for browsers that do not support VP8: IE (of course), Safari, and older mobile clients." So... there's that.
- jallmann 13y agoBeing "open source" has nothing to do with it. The H.264 specs are open, there are plenty of FOSS tools available, and its supported ecosystem is much more robust. The only advantage to VP8, from a developer's perspective, is in being royalty-free. But the cost borne by Google in acquiring and developing that IP dwarfs any potential royalty to MPEG-LA ($6.5mm/yr max). Make no mistake about it, this move is a play for power under the guise of good intentions.
- Shooti 13y agoIIRC VP8 requires less processing power at the same bitrate.
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- zungas 13y agoRemember this is proprietary software and technology from Google, the guys who receive tax payers money from the NSA. I think I'll pass.
- ashishgandhi 13y agoIs there are reason why this is a link to Google Plus which essentially links to GigaOM? The comments on Plus aren't what you would call top quality either. Orignal link: http://gigaom.com/2013/08/28/hangouts-hd-vp8-webrtc/ http://gigaom.com/2013/08/28/hangouts-hd-vp8-webrtc/
- thurn 13y agoPresumably because it's official confirmation of the feature. The gigaom piece seems more speculative in nature (no official sources).
- raldi 13y agoIndeed, the person who posted it runs G+.
- cpeterso 13y agoThat GigaOM article says "Google is phasing out the use of third-party code provided by the video conferencing technology vendor Vidyo", but this VentureBeat article says "Google will license Vidyo’s scalable video coding extensions for use in its free and open source VP9 video codec". Can these articles both be true? http://venturebeat.com/2013/08/28/webrtc-gets-a-boost-google-taps-vidyo-to-build-better-web-native-video/ http://venturebeat.com/2013/08/28/webrtc-gets-a-boost-google...
- magicalist 13y agoThe gigaom article also says "That’s why, moving forward, Vidyo actually wants to support WebRTC and open video codecs. The company is announcing Wednesday that it will contribute client-side scalable video coding technology to VP9, the next generation of Google’s open video codec. Vidyo will also cooperate with Google to incorporate some of its technology into enterprise versions of Hangouts."
- michaelt 13y agoDoes anyone know if Hangouts has any ability to work with people who don't have Google accounts? IMHO that would be a useful feature.
- zanny 13y agoHangouts runs on a Google proprietary protocol. They are depreciating their foss Jingle library for xmpp video and audio conferencing for Hangouts, to force people to use their entire stack to use Hangouts. I'm hoping Daala + Opus conferencing and streaming can enter Jingle in the next few years, see it mainlined in jabber, and that could be a good alternative. Self-host your own xmpp server if you want, or use a web service that provides it (like Talk did).
- AceJohnny2 13y agoThat's nice, but it won't make me forgive them for removing presence information from the mobile app.
- darkstar999 13y agoYou mean how you can't see who is online on Hangouts? That is super annoying. I may decide how to contact someone based on their status. Are they idle/offline/busy?
- patrickaljord 13y agomost people don't use status and most of those who do abuse them (always away or busy or invisible etc) so I've always found them unreliable and useless. If you need to contact someone, just send the message, he'll answer when he can.
- djim 13y agoit really broke google talk/hangouts on mobile. it isn't any better in the browser, either.
- bluecalm 13y agoAlso statuses (so not only on/off presence) and ability to log off (not only suppress notifications). Lack of those make hangouts unusable for me.
- beowulfey 13y agoyou can log off actually, it's buried deep within the hangouts settings menu. still supremely inconvenient though
- cpursley 13y agoSigh... Dammit Google, quite making amazing products. I'm trying to move away from using American products with NSA backdoors.
- mahyarm 13y agoAt least they spin out a good part of it into an open source library you can use called WebRTC!
- mdesq 13y agoBut I'm still waiting for full screen.
- skore 13y agoWill be interesting to see whether this will allow for realtime streaming of your desktop for "webinar" application. That's a market I would love to see a little disruption in from a big player.
- lostsock 13y agoYou can already screen share with hangouts. Are you just asking if they intend to keep that feature?
- skore 13y agoNo, but the resolution is terrible for sharing screens. The other thing I should have mentioned is that I'm also concerned with sharing a hangout to YouTube for later viewing. That, right now, is only supported for 480p, which is completely unusable for screencasts that contain text.
- ZeroGravitas 13y agoThe article suggest that use case (Live hangouts that are going to be published to Youtube) will be the first to see this rolled out.
- kayoone 13y agolast time i checked it didnt support full screen which is a deal breaker for screen sharing. Hopefully they change it, who needs HD if its not even full screen anyway.
- jordanthoms 13y agoHangouts supports full screen, along with sharing individual windows which is actually really useful
- kayoone 13y agoHow to activate fullscreen ? The video is always in a frame with the chat and navigation bar etc.
- rogerchucker 13y agoAm I the only one who prefers Google Hangouts to Skype even for one-on-one calls?
- short_circut 13y agoI can't wait to see the Virtual Star Party in HD.
- Daiz 13y agoSo they "go HD" by switching to a format with worse compression quality. Sounds like a recipe for victory! (I can certainly understand switching to a royalty-free format, but I still found this funny nevertheless.) On another note, I find it really annoying how people equate video resolution with video quality, when the only thing the resolution really tells is how much detail the video could potentially have. Bitrate and encoding settings will matter much more - if you're using low bitrates (like what you'd tend to see in real-time video calls) a HD video can easily end up looking worse than a lower-resolution video at the same bitrate. This dual move to HD and the switch to a worse format (compression-wise) might just end up doing exactly that (though I haven't actually used Hangouts myself so I can't speak for its current video quality).
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- zurn 13y agoDid Hangouts start enforcing the true names policy recently or was it ilke that from the start? It makes it pretty useless especially if you want a multi party hangout and/or don't know all your contacts to be full-on G+ believers.