Google Talk will now come embedded with software that will help it transmit better and smoother video during video chat sessions.
The 2D video software has been developed by SRI International, a non-profit research and development organisation, and it is meant for tablets running Android 3.0 and above.
“Google has selected SRI technology for stabilising video chats and conferences on Google Talk, making video conversations with a stable picture an anytime, anywhere experience for tablet users,” said Norman Winarsky, vice president, SRI Ventures.
This software is simple: first the application captures video with the front-facing camera of the tablet. Once an image is acquired by the camera it is compressed before it can be transmitted. In video compression algorithms, the Bandwidth used to encode the video increases with the degree of motion in the scene.
By stabilising video the software compensates for scene motion and allows the video compression algorithm to improve image quality by using fewer bits to encode video.
There is increased mobile device efficiency when an image is stabilised before compression, and there is less work for a device’s video compression engine to perform.
With the inclusion in Android Honeycomb there is a huge possibility that we might see this 2D video stabilisation software embedded in Google Talk for smaller devices as well because in real world scenarios mobile phones need video stabilisation more than tablets do as they are more portable than tablets.