Re:Ask HN: Low-latency, ensemble-oriented video conferencing?
by traderj0e on Tuesday March 24, 2020 @03:50PM
(#22678269)
You don't need two round trips, only one trip to the server then one trip to the other user, so one RTT. Also, 15ms ping is considered good for gaming, but you can do like 8ms with a good consumer-grade connection.
Could even go directly peer-to-peer if everyone sets up port forwarding and the software is sophisticated enough to coordinate that.
I'm optimistic about the network side if everyone involved is geared up for it. Don't know about the ends and the server. How much latency can a singer tolerate? For reference, if two singers stand 10m apart, the sound takes at least 29ms to travel through the air.
Re:Ask HN: Low-latency, ensemble-oriented video conferencing?
by jefftk on Tuesday March 24, 2020 @04:03PM
(#22678391)
I thought ping was measured round trip to the central server, and not to the other user?
If you're able to go p2p though then it doesn't matter.
Re:Ask HN: Low-latency, ensemble-oriented video conferencing?
by traderj0e on Tuesday March 24, 2020 @04:06PM
(#22678423)
Ping is round trip to central server. I clarified to say the time to the other user is not two round trips away if you go through the central server, only one.
P.S. Sorry for all the ninja edits. I was thinking you'd not see the comment so quickly.
Singing rounds does work, though, and https://www.cockos.com/ninjam/ is an open source tool for it. You could also imagine some sort of bucket brigade approach for larger groups (https://www.jefftk.com/p/series-singing) but I don't know of any implementations.
Really old style circuit switched landlines get down to the speed of electricity in copper (~0.7c https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Velocity_factor#Typical_veloci...) over the distance (to your local exchange and then to your neighbor) which would be fast enough if you lived nearby (c is l ms per mile). But today it's all packet switched which adds latency in exchange for much higher capacity.