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Comment by atoav | Hacker News Reader

I think a big one is actually latency and framerate. If you have a low latency videosetup (e.g. SDI Cameras and two monitors) you can try out what real low latency feels like. This works soo much better already because you can react to one another's mimic expression etc.

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Indeed, even in VR this is a problem as demonstrated by this informal talk with John Carmack:

https://youtu.be/P7mFEGah27c?t=1359

Unfortunately, that requires the end user to update their hardware. We have to live with the reality that people are not going to have low-latency setups, and design with that in mind. Everybody wins!

>We have to live with the reality that people are not going to have low-latency setups, and design with that in mind.

Or we can live with the reality that some people will shell out for low-latency setups. There is room for both.

If your video conferencing platform _requires_ all participants to have low-latency setups, you are going for a very niche market. I'm talking about fundamental design changes we can bake into the general-purpose video conferencing apps that exist today, such as Teams, Hangouts/Meet, and Zoom.

latency in audio is definitely a big deal. I've definitely had the experience many times of starting to talk a second or two after someone else finishes, only to find someone else had started talking - and all this takes is maybe 500ms of delay to become super noticable.

I've also found it extremely noticable when someone is screen sharing, and their screen share lags behind their audio several seconds often. If they are going through an interface fast, it can be hard to tell what they are referencing on their screen.

I frequently dial into zoom calls via phone, which seems to improve the latency issues a bit. It also helps with stuttering audio in general. It sometimes results in AV sync issues, but I’d rather have smooth sound than jagged sound connected to jagged video.

I dial in all the time, whenever possible. A client's corporate Webex will call me when the meeting starts - that's been great. Another client's zoom will send an invite with a clickable phone number but it doesn't have the appended , and passcode on it, so I have to look that up and type (before the system thinks I'm not there) - super annoying.

It gives me the freedom to pace/walk/move without being tethered to the laptop/desk/screen. Now... I often connect in there as well, so I can see any shared screen, but if I need to walk away for a bit (coffee/etc) no one knows, but I can keep listening. Muting myself on phone is easy too.

And yes, I've found it helps with some audio stuff too - often I'll hear other people making comments about losing audio, or delays, but I rarely experience those when dialed in by phone.

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