Video Conference Focus Detection and Bandwidth Allocation
Find Innovative SolutionsGenerate Solutions
Solution Overview
Problem
Live video communication systems lack feedback on non-verbal cues such as eye contact and focus of attention, leading to lost information during group communications, and network congestion issues that cause freezing of video streams.
Innovation Solution
The system determines a dominant speaker and identifies the live video stream being viewed by the dominant speaker, providing feedback through highlighting, enlargement, or repositioning on displays, and allocates higher bandwidth to actively engaged participants to alleviate network congestion.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Loss of information
If multiple live video streams are displayed simultaneously in a group video conference, then all participants can see each other, but non-verbal cues such as eye contact and focus of attention cannot be detected, leading to loss of communication information
Solution Approach 1:
The system implements feedback by detecting the dominant speaker's focus of attention through stream viewing identification and providing visual feedback to other participants by highlighting or repositioning their video streams. This creates a closed-loop communication system where non-verbal cues are detected and communicated back to participants, resolving the information loss problem without requiring complex additional hardware.
Solution Approach 2:
The system uses an intermediary computing device that processes video streams and determines focus of attention without requiring direct modification of cameras or displays. This intermediary approach allows the system to extract non-verbal communication information from existing video feeds and relay it back to participants, avoiding the need for complex integrated systems in each participant's device.
2Reliability
If multiple video streams are transmitted simultaneously over the network, then all participants can view all speakers, but network congestion occurs causing video stream freezing
Solution Approach 1:
The system applies local quality by allocating higher network bandwidth priority to video streams that the dominant speaker is currently viewing, rather than treating all streams equally. This selective bandwidth allocation ensures that the most relevant video streams maintain high quality and continuity, preventing freezing for critical communications while reducing overall network load.
Solution Approach 2:
The system implements dynamic bandwidth allocation that adjusts network resource distribution in real-time based on the dominant speaker's focus of attention. Video streams receive varying levels of bandwidth priority depending on their current relevance to the active speaker, creating a dynamic network traffic management system that maintains reliability while optimizing productivity.
Data Source
AI summary
Methods for providing feedback information regarding a person's focus of attention during a live video communication are described. The live video communication may comprise a live video conference. The feedback information may correspond with non-verbal cues such as who a speaking person is looking at when they are speaking and whether a listener is paying attention to the speaking person. In some embodiments, a dominant speaker in a live video conference may be determined and a live video stream that is being viewed by the dominant speaker may be identified. An identification of the live video stream may be transmitted to computing devices associated with other participants in the live video conference. Images associated with the live video stream being displayed to the other participants may be highlighted, enlarged, or moved to a different location on displays used by the other participants.