Xbox Live Video Makes Kinect Sound Like a Pain in the A**

Editors Note: The is an opinion piece and does not necessarily reflect the views of RipTen. Enjoy

This morning a new Inside Xbox video was released on everyone’s dashboard. The video has Microsoft’s Major Nelson and a few savvy engineers explain how to set Kinect up in a room and it sounds like a major pain in the ass.

Placement:

The device uses a tech sensitivity map to give a one-size-fits-all setup and scans the distance between you and the TV. Kinect should be placed as close to the top or bottom of the TV as possible, tilting the device higher or lower to adjust. The ideal placement of you, the player, should be at least 6 ft. away from the sensor and 4 ft. to your left and right away from walls or objects. The sensor will tilt itself automatically to then scan the floor to check for distances. Things like clothes, toys, random crap on the floor will hurt the calculations of the device. Now’s a good time to take your Mom’s advice and clean your room.

Ok, so everything is fine so far and expected of the technology. This next part the video the video gets negative towards its own product and explains major annoyances, almost as if they are unsure of their own product.

Lighting:

Even lighting is needed at all times. If you have one lamp on in your room, light calculations will be off and you will look different to the camera when moving. It will then make the camera impossible to keep track of you and have a fluid motion. This may not be an issue if you have a light source from the ceiling, but if you rely on a single lamp or other light source.

Audio:

Kinect has 4 microphones to hear your commands in the dashboard. When other sounds are present, even slight chatter, the microphones will pick it up. If placed near speakers or a subwoofer, audio commands are impossible, so you must mute your TV or make sure nothing is playing while saying commands. I can see this not being an issue when saying commands on the dashboard since it doesn’t make much noise, but what about when playing a game. I have speakers and a subwoofer in that area and usually play games loudly. The device takes an audio sample from your everyday room to make up for noise, but even the engineers have agreed it won’t work well will any other noise.

Now these may seem like minor annoyances, but to play a game it must be quiet, well lit, and you need a lot of space to jump around? Try playing Kinect Adventures at a Party: make sure everybody keeps it down and turn off the strobe light.

I’m still interested in kinect and can’t wait to try it out, but for now I am more than happy with just using a controller.

Check out the captured video below:

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still interested though. £99 with kinect adventures would be better for me. im hoping to find a good deal in a few months. reading above it seems it needs room and positioning in a quite place when doing voice commands. il have to see, i can picture kinect being pretty big imo