WebRTC
WebRTC is an titillating fresh technology that makes it possible to create web applications that support real-time movie, voice, and data. By leveraging WebRTC you can build a total featured movie talk app running in a browser without requiring the user to download any software.
WebRTC is a fresh standard for enabling Real Time Communication (RTC) within a web browser. A web browser that has support for WebRTC includes the necessary technology to build a two-way movie talk client directly in the browser.
There are several browsers that have varying levels of support for WebRTC. The leading browsers that support WebRTC are Google Chrome and Mozilla Firefox, both of which work with Vidyo.io.
The WebRTC project was initiated by Google and standardization is being performed both at W3C and the IETF. WebRTC is being rapidly adopted by numerous technology companies. Vidyo is contributing toward the standard by working with Google to add scalability to the VP9 movie codec.
There are three movie codecs that are supported by browser makers today.
The initial movie codec implemented in the WebRTC standard. It supports temporal scalability and is intended to be royalty-free.
H.264 AVC
Recently added as an MTI codec along with VP8, H.264 has been widely used by legacy movie compression systems since 2003. H.264 is covered by a patent pool administered and licensed by MPEG-LA.
The next generation movie codec from Google includes support for both temporal and spatial scalability. Like the VP8 codec, VP9 is intended to be royalty-free.
Is WebRTC supported on mobile devices?
Today the only mobile platform that can support WebRTC without a download is Android, assuming you have a WebRTC capable browser installed. Not all Android browsers support WebRTC, so you need to be certain you are using a supported browser. On iOS there are presently no browsers that support WebRTC. To enable WebRTC on mobile devices, most developers choose to build it into an existing app. Vidyo.io provides mobile SDKs to make it possible to add multiparty movie talk to your app on both Android and iOS.
Does WebRTC work well through firewalls?
WebRTC works well through firewalls. However, in order to decently traverse firewalls and NATs, some network infrastructure is required. WebRTC relies on TURN servers to negotiate connections through firewalls and NAT. Additionally, when TURN is used to negotiate a firewall/NAT the media (audio and movie) from the call travels through the TURN server. Therefore, it is vital that TURN servers be deployed at scale to provide geographically localized connections to maintain low latency. Vidyo.io provides a global footprint with automatic geolocation capability. When an endpoint connects to Vidyo.io it is automatically routed to the nearest server automatically.