
It’s 2016, why is video conferencing still terrible? - calchris42
https://medium.com/@chris_82106/https-medium-com-chris-82106-its-2016-why-is-video-conferencing-still-terrible-1b8802032aae#.rcalpw337
======
rocky1138
The core problem is that we no longer create protocol standards. This has been
discussed on Hacker News before, see
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10256479](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10256479).
Each company creates their own protocol (usually piggybacked over HTTP or
WebRTC) and no one agrees to unify or share their details.

The proper way to do this would be to get several companies and the IETF + EFF
or GNU (or some other libre organization) together in a room and hash out a
protocol standard using RFCs. Then clients can be written to that spec. See
HTML, Email, TCP/IP, ad nauseum.

[https://www.ietf.org/](https://www.ietf.org/)

~~~
zamfi
What do you make of WebRTC?

Is that an attempt to do just what you propose?

~~~
rocky1138
Yes! A second problem is that not all clients follow the spec. For example,
Safari, which has relations with the dog in every respect:
[http://iswebrtcreadyyet.com/](http://iswebrtcreadyyet.com/)

Thankfully, for those unfortunate enough to be on an iOS device, I'm sure a
native app can provide webRTC support rather than going the browser route.

~~~
astrodust
If Safari is an impediment then it's time to put more pressure on Apple to
conform. That's a lot easier than inventing new standards.

Mozilla caved on H.264 so anything is possible.

~~~
quicklyfrozen
I don't think it's really in Apple's interest to conform. The status quo means
developers have to build native apps.

~~~
astrodust
Apple has a vested interest in having a high quality browser. In many "native
apps" it's the backbone of them.

What would Twitter be, for example, without a robust WebKit view for web
content?

------
zbuf
I believe the biggest impact to rapport is poor audio, not video.

Even dedicated conferencing rooms have poor quality mic setup (easy to fix)
and acoustics (a little harder)

It's testament to the ability of echo cancellation and associated algorithms
that these systems are able to make anything work at all -- and in many ways
this has masked the problem, preventing attention where it's needed.

I develop a 'conferencing' system for radio broadcasters called cleanfeed.net.
It's amazingly basic compared to more general systems, (it basically doesn't
do any changes to the audio) and yet the rapport is much greater, even with
smart use of basic kit -- you can chat over the top of someone, interject and
conversation 'flows'; no video needed.

Of course, this is very much a solution for a certain kind of "advanced" user,
but I believe the solution is somewhere in the middle -- too much attention
spent on video (not audio) and on software (rather than provisioning the right
hardware)

~~~
calchris42
Agreed that quality audio is key. But poor, stuttering video can really be
distracting. In Locus we will typically just stop a video stream before
allowing the stuttering experience.

~~~
zbuf
I think we're probably agreeing here entirely; no video at all is better than
bad video, which is a distraction.

Our brains are familiar with a phone call; it's just not a problem in most
cases.

The remaining cases are probably more like meetings with unfamiliar people, or
webcam sex chat.

------
kristofferR
What a clever way to promote that app.

Instead of making a post about his app like "We made an app that solves X, Y
and Z", which probably wouldn't receive much attention, he made a post about
the problems instead then casually just mentioned that his app solved the
problems.

Smart, I'll probably try that in the future.

~~~
calchris42
Thanks. (we did try the other method too)

~~~
kristofferR
The design needs some work though. You can make it much better quickly by a
few quick steps:

\- Replace the horrible box shadows with one from here:
[http://cssdeck.com/labs/16-box-shadows-to-save-your-
time](http://cssdeck.com/labs/16-box-shadows-to-save-your-time)

\- Add box shadows/borders to the square images.

\- Think about white space. There's basically no space between the paragraphs,
yet huge space between the sections. Why?

\- Apply a super slight linear gradient (the two colors should look the same)
to the buttons, with perhaps a thin border with a similar color and some
slight shadows. The green should be replaced anyway.

\- Think about the typography. The general text here seems a little bold, try
a font-size of 300.

Those quick tips make most typical "developer designs" much better quickly.

~~~
calchris42
Awesome. Thanks for the specific recommendations! We know we need to get a
designer on this soon. But those we can do easily enough.

------
zamfi
How many of these are hard technical problems vs. not enough time spent on UX?

At least most of these, with the exception of "connection issues" could be
solved with better UX. Is it just a matter of time before the major providers
start taking it seriously?

~~~
calchris42
Maybe 50-50? Things like minimizing your own video are certainly not hard
technical problems. But some apparently UX issues could become hard tech. For
example, analyzing mic signals to detect speech vs. background noise to make
the experience more comfortable?

~~~
zamfi
Yeah, and at what point does deeper AI start to play a role? Some people might
want google to listen to your conference and play secretary -- following up on
action items, suggesting dates for follow-up meetings, etc. Like they've
stated doing with Allo?

------
sigvef
One issue is that laptop cameras still mostly suck compared to the high
quality smartphone cameras that we have grown accustomed to. Video
conferencing vendors can either fix that by offering fancy external cameras,
which always ends up being expensive, or using some sort of software
processing to improve the video quality. (Shameless plug: our browser
extension Zombocam kinda does the latter
[https://www.zombocam.com/](https://www.zombocam.com/) )

------
lucisferre
One of the main problems I had as a startup founder with getting a good video
conference solution for the team was setting up meeting rooms with hardware.
There are very few good all-in-one solutions out there and most of the ones
that do exists (Lifesize, Cisco, etc.) are really expensive and not a great
experience either.

I've been fairly happy with Highfive[1], as they are the closest I've been
able to get to "plug-and-play" video conference rooms. And for the most part
the usability is good. The biggest problem we had was that the app would not
work with some other companies we wanted to connect with because of their
firewall settings, however they are now supporting WebRTC which means no app,
no special firewall settings for guests in your conference. I have yet to try
the new WebRTC stuff but overall I can highly recommend Highfive based on our
first few months working with it.

[1]:[https://highfive.com/](https://highfive.com/)

~~~
zamfi
Were those other companies also using highfive? Or were they using other
systems?

Webrtc is sadly not immune to firewall issues, so I'd be curious if that
actually solves the issue you experienced.

~~~
lucisferre
No they weren't. Mostly financial companies with arcane firewall setups. They
usually had opened things up only for more popular conference software like
GoToMeeting or Skype, so that is one of the problems faced when using a newer
technology even if it is a better experience overall.

Time will tell if WebRTC solves these issues, it was only just launched this
week.

------
ryanmarsh
God the tools my Fortune 500 clients use for remote collaboration are stuck in
2001. It's so bad.

------
jeffehobbs
Core problem is that video conferencing is inherently an unsatisfying, oddly
asymmetrical social presentation. On the phone, users can talk, and be
present, yet multitask. On a video conference, you have to present (via
acting) a presentation of "present thought", which since most systems show you
a real time display of your face, quickly becomes a "mirror exercise" more
than a conveyance of information.

It's a poor simulacrum of social interaction, a compromise that satisfies no
one.

~~~
calchris42
Good point. Any ideas come to mind how to solve this with technology or UX
improvements?

This does relate to one of my points in the blog post. The current experience
is not conversational, and instead ends up with the speaker "presenting" much
more than just talking.

------
calchris42
We've addressed "some" of these problems in our new app: Locus
([https://inthelocus.com](https://inthelocus.com)). It's still new and
improving, but we'd love any feedback. Thanks!

Btw. we do use WebRTC and it has worked quite nicely for install-free
conferencing.

------
everyone
In my 2nd last job we used Skype and it worked flawlessly. In my last job we
used google hangouts and it was never perfect and often problematic.

~~~
calchris42
In my last job we used Skype for Business. Worked decently once we got
connected. But invariably it would take 10 minutes for everyone to actually
get connected with working audio. And actually we typically only used audio,
so didn't even have to worry about video troubles. Still it suffered from
people entering "presentation mode".

Agreed on Hangouts.

------
mrep
My team just started using biba as we now have a remote employee. It's
ridiculously easy to use and also has screen share.

