Headcasting's cool!

[Maggi]

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" size="2">Originally posted by Greebe:
Ami, that's because US companies don't realise the demand for this overseas, where bandwidth is grossly limited in most places.

It may sound silly and dumb now, but does have it's place in the world. </font>

Oh, so true ...


Thanx Greeb

[Six Of One]

Does this Headcasting need to be displayed on the whole screen or can it be of variable size? Can you display multiple heads at once? Maybe all in one instance?

This might be the "killer application" for IRC friends. Virtual chatrooms with floating heads all around and babbling...

BTW, does the card come with a microphone in? I know most modern boards have onboard sound but i wonder what good this feature is without sound. I am still not convinced but i start to see markets for this kind of gadget. But only in the entertainment area.

[SteveC]

It's been a loooonnngg time since I last saw a new PC without a sound card either on board or added.
I see what you mean about the microphone though - they should include one in the box.

------------------
Cheers,
Steve

"Life is what we make of it, yet most of us just fake"

[Buback]

Jorden, I don't think headcasting takes any video input.
It should, because then it would be lots cooler. If it did that, your virtual head would do what your real head did(wink, turn and look at stuff, yadda yadda)

IF it did that, It would need some sort of cool hardware(or software) that interpreted your image from the webcame into virtual head movements. This would be incredably cool because you could tie this into games so you could have some sort of parallax effect. It would make your monitor look like a window(i.e. you could move your head to the side and peek around the edge of the screen!) John Carmack was talking about using webcams for something like this at a confrence once, but I havn't heard anything about it recently.

Anyway, from what I've read, the headcasting stuff uses some software, called headFone, to interpret your mouth movements from a mic. There must be some way to control your head, maybe with the mouse or keystrokes, because it would look really stupid if it just had a moving mouth.

The thing that freaks me out is that it has no body. Why couldn't they have put in some stock suits or dresses that you could chose from? Tthat would make it seem more mormal.

[Jorden]

Buback, you're right ofcourse, and I must say that what Matrox does now sounds a bit like Intel did for their P3 CPU's, with the enhanced internet experience and 3D worlds, while this is for "(h)email" only

I did understand that you'd still needed your webcam, as the GoIP sends the vertex graphics to the other person. Which could mean that you can't ever change the position of your webcam, or be talking out of your ear

And if the software does it with sound-only, I forsee problems. What about other languages? Probably be waiting for ages for a Dutch version, and would that Dutch version work with an English hemailer?

Just think of having Mike on your screen... brrrrr

Jord.

Edit: Ah yes, before you start Mike, my image let's mirrors crack already, so a 3D version would blow out every possible monitor

[This message has been edited by Jorden (edited 22 June 2001).]

[SteveC]

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" size="2">Originally posted by Jorden:
And if the software does it with sound-only, I forsee problems.</font>

Yep - it's going to move the headcast based upon your voice. (Maybe text-to-speech would work too).

------------------
Cheers,
Steve

"Life is what we make of it, yet most of us just fake"

[bacon]

I would imagine it would combine basic keyboard inputs. Like being able to use the cursor keys to animate the face a little, along with lipsyncing with voice input.
On the subject of headcasting as well, I saw a Java based 3D face on a web page once which you could animate with voice input. Obviously the graphics wheren't great, but I remember it was a pretty cool technology at the time, I'll try and find a link....
Will Ant be able to incorpate Headcasting into the forums??? Now that would be useful .

[PurpleHaze]

Guys guys - Limited bandwidth maybe, but still no _purpose_ ... Where has there been a situation in the world where someone has said, "I don't have enough bandwidth, but i NEED to see an animated head of this person!"

I don't know. Maybe for kids. Maybe for kids in schools, or something... But I just don't see it as a really... useful feature, and I certainly don't think it should have been the focus of their marketing campaign.. which it is.

[Rags]

Fizzy,

I think there are more implications to this technology than what Matrox's oh so wonderful PR are trying to tout this as.

Rags

[cbman]

Did anyone read my post in the matrox hardware forum about my idea of what the Headcasting might be targeting?

If not I think it might be a good idea... let me see if I can find the link.

http://forums.murc.ws/ubb/Forum5/HTML/010803.html

Edit... Added Link

[This message has been edited by cbman (edited 23 June 2001).]

[Joel]

Hey Fizzy,

You really should check out the links in the previous post and go to applications if you still feel there is no pratical uses for headcasting.

Joel

[bacon]

This ahs almost definitely been on the forums before, but I'll post it anyway. You get get a demo of the digimask headcasting thing from Digimask.

Online Demo




[This message has been edited by bacon (edited 23 June 2001).]

[Afronaut]

Where can I get the software for headcasting.?

[thop]

look jorden is alive.

[Taz]

Originally posted by thop
look jorden is alive.

I think you need to look at the date of the posts