Holy cow! Is this real? (FarPlay.io)

[Mike Senior]

Just came across this. If it works it's a game-changer. It says it's uncompressed audio too:
https://farplay.io/

Anyone had any experience with it?

[Hugh Robjohns]

It has to be uncompressed audio. Compression codecs all introduce latency -- and some common ones introduce a great deal of latency!

So the solution here is to shove a very large amount of audio data across a very fast internet link, as UDP packets with real-time headers to ensure prompt transport across the link.

The underlying technology is 'netjack2' and 'jacktrip' :

https://jackaudio.org/

You can read more on the concepts here:

https://ccrma.stanford.edu/groups/sound ... cktrip.pdf

[Drew Stephenson]

From a quick read it sounds like it's trying to work on the same principles as Groovesetter (https://www.soundonsound.com/reviews/groovesetter ), that worked using Jack.
But if that's a genuinely representative video then they've definitely sorted something out.
I'd be curious as to how it works with more than 2 participants and how they get round the peer to peer challenge that I mention in the Groovesetter article.

[EDIT] Ah, I've read a bit further now. They get around the challenge by not taking it on! It's only for two participants.

[Folderol]

Very impressive. That guy looks familiar - think I've met him at Linux conferences.

[Mike Senior]

Thanks for the input everyone! That's enough to make me definitely want to give it a shot. Could be really cool for remote training sessions, which I do a lot of these days.

[Mike Senior]

That guy looks familiar - think I've met him at Linux conferences.

Aren't all Linux users basically clones? Something about making humanity more no-frills and efficient...

[Folderol]

That guy looks familiar - think I've met him at Linux conferences.

Aren't all Linux users basically clones? Something about making humanity more no-frills and efficient...

Quite the opposite!
In fact, we get complaints that we keep producing variations of programs that are similar but not quite the same

[essej]

Another one to check out is SonoBus, if you haven't already... https://sonobus.net , which is a bit more flexible as it includes plugin and standalone versions, more options and is completely free and open source. The end-to-end latency might be a *little* higher than FarPlay (right now), and it doesn't have the separate broadcast buffer mode they have (yet), but it can handle a lot of use cases.

[camFarPlay]

Hi Cam here I work for FarPlay and wanted to let you know that FarPlay indeed does work check out farplay.io. If you are interested I can offer you a free trial of the plus subscription to test drive the advanced features.

It’s important to note that the uncompressed audio is when you record using FarPlay. When you play your monitor audio may vary but is adjustable with a slider to find the right balance between latency and quality.

[ManFromGlass]

Sadly this can only be a dream for me. I live in the boonies and on a good day wearing a tin foil hat and standing on one leg I can get an upload speed of 2Mbps. I don’t come close to the 8Mbps required.

[Martin Walker]

Nevertheless, many thanks to Cam for taking the touble to join the SOS Forums and offer a free trial of the FarPlay plus subscription.

Thanks Cam, and welcome to the SOS Forums!

Martin

[Wonks]

Sadly this can only be a dream for me. I live in the boonies and on a good day wearing a tin foil hat and standing on one leg I can get an upload speed of 2Mbps. I don’t come close to the 8Mbps required.

Could you if you paid more? Upload speed is normally limited by the provider rather than a physical limitation of your connection.

[ManFromGlass]

Tried that. It’s satellite internet and we seem to be right on the edge of the “beam” plus there must be obstruction issues. The company has 3 satellites up, one of them being for people with reception issues and none of them improved reception.
The neighbours chuckle when they walk by as we have what I call a Pole Farm. Each location where they tried the dish was on a large pole - we currently have 6, five are now bird feeder supports. As we like birds this is a win.

[Wonks]

I expect it’s all those feeding birds blocking the signal!

[sonics]

Could you if you paid more? Upload speed is normally limited by the provider rather than a physical limitation of your connection.

This is rural Canada we're talking about, I think. There is no choice. My download speed went up from an unreliable 1.6Mbps to a reliable 1.8Mbps when I moved house. (Yes, bits. Not enough to watch YouTube at 720p.) I had to wait five years before they got in a high-speed line; in fact I moved away during that time just to be able to work!

EDIT
Well, there is cellular data that costs about ten or twenty times what you pay in the UK!

[ManFromGlass]

Yes - rural. Even landlines have issues here and the repair people are more than familiar with what they call the country hum.
Bell have been promising high speed for 18 years now. I guess they don’t want to rush anything.
We have all been hoping one of their executives moves into the area. I suspect speeds would increase dramatically. Not that they show any kind of favouritism . . . . . . .

[Wonks]

Whilst I’ve suffered a week of a fibre company digging up our road to install fibre to home cables. Already got fibre to local cabinet broadband with 275Mbps download and 26Mbps upload speeds, so I won’t be swapping anytime soon.

[sonics]

Bell have been promising high speed for 18 years now. I guess they don’t want to rush anything.

I predict you'll never get it...

Already got fibre to local cabinet broadband with 275Mbps download and 26Mbps upload speeds, so I won’t be swapping anytime soon.

Well my upload speed is now six times faster than that, and I still live in rural Canada. Downloads can wait, but uploads can't in my work. I don't know how that's happened, but I'm not complaining!

[tea for two]

Hi Cam here I work for FarPlay and wanted to let you know that FarPlay indeed does work check out farplay.io. If you are interested I can offer you a free trial of the plus subscription to test drive the advanced features.

It’s important to note that the uncompressed audio is when you record using FarPlay. When you play your monitor audio may vary but is adjustable with a slider to find the right balance between latency and quality.

This is spiffing Cam.
The usages for this are pretty vast in diverse fields including medical, even emergency situations.

I think making music together is one of it's least important usages.
Even though music is important particularly for instance music therapy using FarPlay.

"FarPlay can achieve latencies below 10 ms, which feels the same as playing with someone 10 feet away from you.
FarPlay transports audio so efficiently that you can play music, teach lessons, conduct interviews, or talk as if you were together in the same room, even though you might be hundreds or even thousands of miles apart."