Video calling isn’t just a communication option anymore – it’s an essential part of the collaboration stack. Ever since the rise of COVID-19 at the beginning of 2020, the adoption of video is skyrocketing. Microsoft even hit a new daily record on Teams, of 2.7 billion meeting minutes in a day in April. Of course, there are still challenges to overcome in the video-first landscape.
On one hand, video calling allows for more immersive face-to-face conversations with your colleagues. It adds context and humanity to a meeting in a way that mimics in-person interaction. However, issues like face alignment problems and excess noise can detract from the quality of a meeting. Fortunately, Nvidia, a leader in computing technology, thinks it may have the answer.
Nvidia recently announced a new videoconferencing solution aimed at developers. With Nvidia Maxine, the company believes that developers can fix problems in video calls using the latest artificial intelligence technology.
What is Nvidia Maxine?
Nvidia Maxine processes calls in the cloud using the Nvidia GPUs that are currently leading the market in performance. Maxine also boosts the quality of video conferencing conversations in a variety of ways, thanks to artificial intelligence support. Intelligent technology ensures that Maxine can realign faces and gazes in a meeting, so they seem like they’re looking at a camera directly.
At the same time, the service reduces the requirements for video bandwidth, down to a tenth of the requirements generally needed for H.264 streaming compression. The service does this by transmitting key facial points only, and upscaling the resolution of videos. Other features available here include re-lighting for user faces, real-time transcription and translation, and even animated avatars.
Not all of the features listed for Maxine are brand-new to the marketplace. Real-time transcription and video compression are common solutions that appear in various video conferencing tools. Apple and Microsoft also match Nvidia by offering gaze alignment functionality, helping people to maintain eye contact during video calls. However, Nvidia seems to be taking this functionality to another level.
Nvidia is also relying on its presence in the cloud computing industry, alongside its impressive work in resources and development for AI to help it make an impact on the landscape. What most companies will be waiting for is evidence that established videoconferencing brands will actually adopt the new Nvidia technology. After all, Maxine is a toolkit that supports third-party firms in enhancing their software. It’s not a consumer platform on its own.
At this point, Nvidia has only announced a single partnership with Avaya, which has agreed to use certain features from Maxine. However, all major cloud vendors are also offering Maxine as part of the Nvidia GPU cloud services too.
