WhatsApp adds 4 important new features for video calling

Video calls came to whatsapp V 2016almost ten years ago and 7 years after the application was launched in year 2009. The feature has evolved since then, but not as much as others whatsapp. 8 years ago they could only be one to onethey approached 8 participants 2020. Two years later, links for video calls appeared, with which you could invite people who were not in the user’s contact list. IN 2023 function has arrived share screen From phone and the number of participants was increased to the total number 16. And this has been the most relevant so far.

WhatsApp has announced a number of new features that it is rolling out to the app, so you’ll have to update to use them. There are 4 ways in which WhatsApp wants to bring its feature closer to what other apps that are more focused on video calling offer, such as: Increase

. They are not comparable, but they represent an important change.

Screen sharing is becoming in real screen sharing by adding sound. This makes this feature ideal for watch videos with other contactsas the experience becomes complete.

The number of participants increases to 32.. Still far from Zoom’s 100 or Skype’s 50, but ahead of Microsoft Teams’ 20 or Telegram’s 30.

The more participants, the more difficult it is to determine who is speaking at any given moment. The Featured Speaker feature highlights the window of the person who does so.

and makes it easy to monitor a video call.

Finally a video calling experience improved sound quality through the introduction of a new codec developed by Meta. Audio and video codecs are responsible for compressing data to efficiently send it over the Internet and keep the video call, in this case, in real time. As explained TargetThe size of raw audio recorded from a typical call is 768 kbps, and when compressed by modern codecs it is about 25-30 kbps. Depending on the codec, the final quality after information loss will be better or worse.

In recent years, WhatsApp has been using an open source codec. Opuslaunched in year 2012. In October 2022Meta started using Codecwhich provides clear quality at very low data rates, but which Requires high-performance equipment to operate.

New codec developed by Meta, Goal: low bitrate or Mlowimproves sound quality, especially on mobile phones with poor quality connection. According to the company, Double the quality of Opus using 10% less device resources

, so the improvement in video calling should be noticeable in both quality and smoothness. With Mlow, which has already been used on Instagram and Messenger, “you’ll be able to make calls without interference from noise and echo if your environment is noisy, and make higher-resolution video calls if your connection is faster,” WhatsApp explains. in his Blog.