Google's WaveNetEQ Fills in Speech Gaps During Duo Calls

upstart writes in with an IRC submission for chromas:

Google's WaveNetEQ fills in speech gaps during Duo calls:

Google today detailed an AI system - WaveNetEQ - it recently deployed to Duo, its cross-platform voice and video chat app, that can realistically synthesize short snippets of speech to replace garbled audio caused by an unstable internet connection. It's fast enough to run on a smartphone while delivering state-of-the-art, natural-sounding audio quality, laying the groundwork for future chat apps optimized for bandwidth-constrained environments.

Here's how it sounds compared with Duo's old solution (the first is WaveNetEQ):

https://venturebeat.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/waveneteq_120_ms_2_63b829581a3291c144a030639139c199.wav
https://venturebeat.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/neteq_120_ms_2_8e86d7b2061dfb964b845ebefc1aebd9.wav

As Google explains, to ensure reliable real-time communication, it's necessary to deal with packets (i.e., formatted units of data) that are missing when the receiver needs them. (The company says that 99% of Duo calls need to deal with network issues, and that 10% of calls lose more than 8% of the total audio duration due to network issues.) If new audio isn't delivered continuously, audible glitches and gaps will occur, but repeating the same audio isn't ideal because it produces artifacts and reduces overall call quality.

Google's solution - WaveNetEQ - is what's called a packet loss containment module, which is responsible for creating data to fill in the gaps created by packet losses, excessive jitter, and other mishaps.

"I can['t] hear you now."

Original Submission

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