One of the great things about WebRTC is that it is built right into the web platform. The web platform is generally great for WebRTC, but occasionally it can cause huge headaches when specific WebRTC needs do not exactly align with more general browser usage requirements. The latest example of this is has to do with the autoplay of media where sound(s) suddenly went missing for many users. Former webrtcHacks guest author Dag-Inge Aas has been dealing with this first hand. See below for his write-up on browser expectations around the playback of media, the recent Chrome 66+ changes, and some tips and tricks for working around these issues.
Web Audio
All posts tagged Web Audio
Conference calling is a multi-billion dollar industry that is mostly powered by expensive, high-powered conferencing servers. Now you can replicate much of this functionality for free with a modern browser using the combination of WebRTC and WebAudio.
Like with video, multi-party audio can utilize a few architectures:
- Full mesh – each client sends their audio to every other client; the individual streams are then combined locally before they come out of your speaker
- Mixed with a conferencing server acting as a Multipoint Control Unit (MCU) – the MCU combines each stream and sends a single set to each client
- Routed with a conferencing server in a Selective Forwarding Unit (SFU) mode – each client sends a single stream to the server where it is replicated and sent to the others
This architecture represents a fourth type: client-mixed type where one of the clients acts like the server. This provides the server-less benefits of mesh conferencing without the excessive bandwidth usage and stream management challenges.
webrtcH4cKS: ~ Shut up! Monitoring audio volume in getUserMedia
A few days back my old friend Chris Koehncke, better known as “Kranky” asked me how hard it would be to implement a wild idea he had to monitor what percentage of the time you spent talking instead of listening on a call when using WebRTC. When I said “one day” that made him wonder whether he could offshore it to save money. Well… good luck!
A week later Kranky showed me some code. Wait, he is writing code? It was not bad – it was using the WebAudio API so going in the right direction. It was enough to prod me to finish writing the app for him.
