Microsoft Kinect: The AnandTech Review
by Brian Klug on December 9, 2010 3:20 PM ESTKinect - Environmental Constraints
There are a lot of environmental constrains that the Kinect imposes, but the system actually works extremely well. Inside the manual and throughout the literature distributed with Kinect are notices about reducing ambient sunlight in the room you’re using the Kinect. At the same time, you need ambient light for the RGB color camera to work - this seems somewhat confusing until you consider that sunlight also contains spectral components at the same wavelength the Kinect operates at. Lots of ambient sunlight thus decreases the visibility of those spots on the room and players, and could conceivably make depth detection much worse. That sort of reminds me how the Wii sensor bar could be emulated with candles some distance apart atop the television, or how playing with the Wii next to a fireplace could easily make the system glitch out.
In practice, I never once noticed problems with depth detection on Kinect that I’d blame on ambient noise from stray light sources - even in a room with, yes, a huge fireplace (hey, it’s a reasonable test). The more important consideration actually turns out to be the relatively poor sensitivity of the RGB camera, which requires lots of room lighting to get decent framerate or augment facial detection.
The more important consideration for playing space is play space size - you need a big room to use Kinect. On the back of the Kinect packaging, Microsoft notes that a distance of 6’ from TV to players is requisite at minimum. After a lot of testing, I’d say 6’ is optimistic, even for one person. In actuality I’d say 9’-12’ is closer to what is optimal, especially if you want to play with a second person, and later inside games you’ll be told as much.
Sensor position itself makes a lot of difference here - Kinect can go either on top or below the TV, and Microsoft recommends anywhere 2’ - 6’ off the ground. Ultimately, the bar is that Kinect needs to be able to see your entire person - feet, head, and some distance around you to move, jump, and flail your arms around inside. If you place the Kinect on an entertainment center table below the TV, the hazard is that the depth of the table will block part of the depth image at the bottom. I had much more success with placing the Kinect atop TVs, especially when you encounter LCDs and pasmas of the wall-mounted sort.
The first area I tested was my living room, which is reasonably large (or so I used to think), and I played with about 7 feet away from the sensor. I moved a coffee table, unfortunately moving my couch is prohibitively difficult, and I didn’t have space to get rid of it. I was able to play with two people, but it was a bit cramped, and I felt like I needed more distance from the TV the whole time.
See that above me? Yeah, it's a ceiling fan.
The consideration I didn’t think of is what’s above. Needless to say, you need space to flail your arms around, especially if you’re tall. Above me within arm’s reach is a ceiling fan. That’s a serious problem if you get excited and jump with your arms above your head, as my girlfriend experienced a few minutes into our first session of Kinect Adventures. Ultimately, I can’t blame Kinect for my living room being small, but you need to be aware of the space constraints - Kinect won’t work in dorm rooms or tiny play areas, but does work with at least average sized living rooms. It’s entirely constrained by the field of view of the sensor and CGH, and admittedly it’s hard to make very wide angle CGH systems with good uniformity and repeatability.
I later tried Kinect in a much larger space with more than 12’ of space behind a wall-mounted plasma, with the Kinect mounted atop the display about 6.5’ above the ground. I had much more success here both with detection of my feet, and two-player space.
If you’re running out of space or are playing with just barely enough, the problems that arise are what you’d expect. Kinect won’t see your feet very well, or miss your hands, but thankfully most of the time you’re given feedback visually on the display that you need to move back into the optimal position.
The interesting bit of the Kinect space story is that closer to the sensor, you get better depth resolution at the cost of having less space to work in, yet far away you sacrifice depth resolution for more working area. It’s a simple consequence of field of view and the angular separation of those points in the CGH image. Prime Sense advertises that their reference design has a depth resolution of 1 cm at two meters from the sensor. As you move further away, that depth resolution gets worse (larger).
The final note is that I’ve actually noticed that clothing choice makes a difference. In fact, there are a few warnings in the literature shipped with games which notes that some clothing choices may make detection hard. I never had serious issues being detected outside of one special combination of cargo shorts and a specific footwork-heavy move in Dance Central, but more on that later. Common sense applies here, and essentially you need to look human and have some depth contrast visible for Kinect to detect your limbs.
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docmbm - Sunday, December 12, 2010 - link
Or is it?http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KWbLOFGSEDo
Well try it and give us an update.
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Docmbm
Hrel - Sunday, December 12, 2010 - link
I REALLY hope new consoles are at least announced at this coming E3. Even if they don't come out till summer 2012; I wanna know developers have them and can finally move past DX9. I mean seriously, it's been out for what, 10 years now? Time to move forward. DX 11 all the way.nikon133 - Sunday, December 12, 2010 - link
Some time ago I would say the same, but...I was playing Battlefield: Bad Company 2 on PS3 for long time - more than six months on and off - mostly enjoying online play after I finished campaign. Recently I got new ATI 6870 graphics for my PC and, having now whole PC more than decent enough, borrowed PC version of Bad Company 2 from my friend.
My box is now capable of running this game in full HD with all the bells and whistles (I think I've got only AA disabled as I'm finding native 1920x1080 on 23" monitor perfectly adequate) so I was expecting to be blown away with difference between those two versions. I wasn't. While PC version does look better, I honestly expected much more for 2 generations of DirectX hardware difference, not to mention all the other resources my PC has over PS3. Higher resolution, smoother shadows, a bit more effects (smoke, fog, sandstorm...) are visible for pixel-peepers, but once I get immersed in the game, I really didn't feel PS3 version inferior, even if I was playing same levels on both platforms one after another.
Later on I tried Dirt 2, Burnout Paradise... and to the same conclusion. PC versions, to my eyes, were not better enough to make PS3 experience inferior.
I have a feeling PC programmers are getting a bit lazy and spoiled with all the hardware power they have, they are not putting much effort to optimise their code to the last bit of power. Surely Quad Core with 8GB of RAM, X-Fi Gamer audio and latest DX11 graphics with 1GB of DDR5 should be able to smoke DX9 graphics with 256MB of RAM and 256MB of system RAM much more than this..?
Back to the topic - while I'm not much into jumping and waving games - part to my humble 42 years of age - I see potential in them, especially that modern consoles should be offering fun for the whole family. I actually got PS Move and am throwing Frisbee and doing other Sports Champions games with my lady often enough to justify this purchase. Games are not BC2 grade, but they are quick fun in their own game.
Are you guys planning to review PS Move system as well? I enjoyed your Kinect review and would like to see your opinion on other comparable gear.
CptTripps - Wednesday, December 15, 2010 - link
Bad example on BC2 as it uses DX11 to simply speed up the shader performance, it adds nothing visually (from what I have read).I am suprised on the Dirt2 conclusion as I found the PC version far superior.
You are right though, the dx9 console versions look and play fine.
I played the move a little and it's not for me, a high res wii basically. I thought the hardware worked very well though.
I may pick up Kinect as the wife and daughters want it (plus they will finally let me sell that POS called the Wii).
m3kw - Monday, December 13, 2010 - link
They should make a video capture of what you during the game play, and when you are done, you can select a option that says "This is how stupid you looked, select to watch", and another option to send to youtube and facebook. The video will be split screen one showing the game and the other showing you. LOL! Is actually will spread like a viral video.Todd33 - Monday, December 13, 2010 - link
Was the author starring at a big MS check the whole time? So many errors (sports being 1:1), Adventures being great, that's why is is averaging 60% and being called shallow mini games with no depth. Where are some test on the resolution, does a wrist motion in bowling or TT do anything or is it all exaggerated arm motions?How does the $150 cheaper than Sony's $99 bundle? Not to mention with the wii you get a whole console for $199, not just an add-on with 3-4 decent games and 12 more shovelware. What about the future of Kinect, can it do anything other than shallow mini-games and dance crap?
This article just exaggerated all the good and then downright ignored any negatives. I guess I will stick to arstech for more realistic reviews.
CptTripps - Wednesday, December 15, 2010 - link
You can get a Wii for $200 and play single player games at 480i.... awesome.With the 99$ Move bundle you get a camera and one motion controller, add another $50 per motion controller plus another $30 per navigation controller, times that by 3 and your 99$ price point just flew out the window.
At $150 being able to handle up to four inputs make any price point arguments stupid as you would easily spend that on extra controllers.
The 360s with kinect for $300 is a great deal and will support 4 players right out of the box. If you think that is a horrible deal that's your problem, but try to be realistic and not throw out BS arguments.
medi01 - Tuesday, December 14, 2010 - link
Last article on PS3 dated 5/16/2005, eh?I wonder, how does this "press" thingy work.
Who decides what gets reviewed and what not.
Is it pure 'patriotism" in revieweing only what "US company" does (let's forget the fact, that we talk about transnational companies that manufacture in China), or something else?
Tuvok86 - Tuesday, December 14, 2010 - link
I tried Kinect adventures at a friend's place and I've found the lag very irritating the arkanoid-like game with the balls was almost unplayablema2ree - Wednesday, December 15, 2010 - link
I find your article very impressive and informative. Your a bright and funny young man. Thanks for the article.