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Twilio Video – Real-time WebRTC video infrastructure

twilio.com

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Re: Twilio Video – Real-time WebRTC video infrastructure

#61

Post by pthatcherg »

gz5 wrote: post #53
dirtyaura wrote: post #37

I did a lot of testing of a few WebRTC platforms last summer for a product idea that we had. I came to the conclusion that on mobile phones, WebRTC video is not yet usable. Even with just audio on a cellular network, call quality started deteriorating after a few minutes on every platform that I tried. Video without a WiFi signal was hopeless. I discussed this with an WebRTC expert, and the problems are partly with W…

The issue is mostly due to the nature of the mobile IP, rather than inherent WebRTC variables. However, ORTC does seek to improve with simulcast/SVC, and attributes of ORTC will merge into WebRTC as well, ultimately providing more hooks, finer-grained control and better instrumentation/visibility to the upper layers. All that said, you can do acceptable quality WebRTC voice and video over 4G LTE today. But you do nee…

ORTC doesn't really have anything to do here, except nicer control over some configurations that you can already control with SDP munging.

Simulcast/SVC, for example, are irrelevant outside of multiway video. And you can already do simulcast with WebRTC.

Re: Twilio Video – Real-time WebRTC video infrastructure

#62

Post by pthatcherg »

Animats wrote: post #45

How available is IPv6 handset to handset connectivity? I understand that T-Mobile offers it, and Verizon can but it's usually disabled. If you have a true peer to peer connection without NAT, more options become possible.

If you can get a peer-to-peer connection, it's irrelevant whether you're behind a NAT or not. That's what ICE is for: to get a peer-to-peer connection even if you're behind a NAT. Having publicly routable IPv6 addresses may increase the likelihood of getting a peer-to-peer connection, but it's not a prerequisite.

Re: Twilio Video – Real-time WebRTC video infrastructure

#63

Post by songzme »

jc4p wrote: post #4

I was really excited by the title but this seems a bit lacking. I've done a lot of WebRTC work -- we currently use Google Hangouts everywhere at Stack Exchange for internal team communication, but the 15 person cap hurts some bigger all-hands calls or our weekly remote parties. I don't think the hardest part of WebRTC is transcoding or TURN servers (what Twilio seems to be offering), multiplexing is where all the com…

Hey, my coworkers and I built https://OpenTokRTC.com to test OpenTok (also a webrtc API) video streams. We've tested it with 15 people a year ago and it worked great. I would imagine that they have improved even more at this point in terms of scalability and quality. You can also test the android/ios companion apps, they all interoperate pretty nicely. As an added bonus, they also support real time video recording and playback, which is really nice.

Re: Twilio Video – Real-time WebRTC video infrastructure

#64

Post by duderific »

RobSpectre wrote: post #18
lucaspiller wrote: post #14

Although it's great to see Twilio branching out into this space, with their recent product releases they do seem to be losing focus on their original Twilio Voice product. Compared to other prodividers their prices really aren't conpetitive, but Twiml is so much more flexible and easier to use than VoiceXML. What to do? :/

Rob from Twilio here - appreciate the feedback. Have you had an opportunity to check out TaskRouter yet? We released it a few weeks ago - definitely my favorite recent product that works with Twilio Voice: https://www.twilio.com/taskrouter

FWIW the scrolling effect is all jittery (and pretty much unusable) in Safari.

Re: Twilio Video – Real-time WebRTC video infrastructure

#65

Post by pthatcherg »

higherpurpose wrote: post #24

Is ORTC still being implemented in the next version of WebRTC? I've read that ORTC needs a greatly simplified implementation (if you forget about all the other legacy stuff in WebRTC, such as support for the phone networks).

ORTC and WebRTC are separate groups in the W3C. You can think of the ORTC "Community Group" doing more exploratory work on a future version of the API while the WebRTC "Working Group" is finishing the 1.0 version. The work the ORTC Community Group is doing may or may not be adopted by the WebRTC working group as a future version someday, or maybe it will adopt some parts but not all.

The currently drafted ORTC API still allows all of the power to the Javascript apps to interoperate with "legacy stuff", but it also allows the JS to bypass most of it.

(I'm a member of both the WebRTC Working Group and the ORTC Community Group)

Re: Twilio Video – Real-time WebRTC video infrastructure

#66

Post by pthatcherg »

kolencherry wrote: post #32
higherpurpose wrote: post #24

Is ORTC still being implemented in the next version of WebRTC? I've read that ORTC needs a greatly simplified implementation (if you forget about all the other legacy stuff in WebRTC, such as support for the phone networks).

I believe that ORTC has been added to the WebRTC 1.1 specification.

There is no WebRTC 1.1 yet. 1.0 isn't even done yet. Once 1.0 is done, then work on 1.1 will start. ORTC maybe be adopted in whole or in parts as 1.1, but the future isn't written yet.

Re: Twilio Video – Real-time WebRTC video infrastructure

#67

Post by jumpchat »

gz5 wrote: post #8

The support for H.264 is interesting. It of course makes sense for iOS and devices that can support hardware acceleration, but device mix can change during a call. So, what happens if two iOS users start, but then they add a VP8 only device? How Twilio handles that use case will be instructive for understanding what use cases we can support with this service. It isn't likely they are transcoding since this intro sugg…

I just added h264 to jumpchat on ios and android. Say A(iOS) talks to B(Android). They both support h264, they negotiate to use h264. C(chrome) joins. A triangle connection is setup where A will talk to B using h264. A & B will talk to C in VP8. It's kind of taxing on mobile when this happens.

Re: Twilio Video – Real-time WebRTC video infrastructure

#68

Post by tjbiddle »

ayushgta wrote: post #51
tjbiddle wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting; however in my opinion I'd redesign that page. Having a lot of the information behind the interactive scrolling will cause it to be lost. Personally, and I know a lot of others, just scroll the page and look for the relevant information in paragraph form. Much easier to digest. This implementation forces me to stay on the page and is a bit frustrating.

I just posted the exact opposite of what you said :) Usually these "scroll hacks" are annoying. In this particular case the "flow" of calls is captured really well this way, IMHO.

Heheh, to each their own :)

Re: Twilio Video – Real-time WebRTC video infrastructure

#69

Post by peralta »

dirtyaura wrote: post #37

I did a lot of testing of a few WebRTC platforms last summer for a product idea that we had. I came to the conclusion that on mobile phones, WebRTC video is not yet usable. Even with just audio on a cellular network, call quality started deteriorating after a few minutes on every platform that I tried. Video without a WiFi signal was hopeless. I discussed this with an WebRTC expert, and the problems are partly with W…

At Tuenti, a cell phone operator in Spain, we have been using webRTC very successfully for audio. In fact, we built android/iOS/web apps to make regular phone calls (to mobile or landline) using webRTC, either from WiFi or 3G/4G networks.

Re: Twilio Video – Real-time WebRTC video infrastructure

#70

Post by MichaelGG »

gz5 wrote: post #53
dirtyaura wrote: post #37

I did a lot of testing of a few WebRTC platforms last summer for a product idea that we had. I came to the conclusion that on mobile phones, WebRTC video is not yet usable. Even with just audio on a cellular network, call quality started deteriorating after a few minutes on every platform that I tried. Video without a WiFi signal was hopeless. I discussed this with an WebRTC expert, and the problems are partly with W…

The issue is mostly due to the nature of the mobile IP, rather than inherent WebRTC variables. However, ORTC does seek to improve with simulcast/SVC, and attributes of ORTC will merge into WebRTC as well, ultimately providing more hooks, finer-grained control and better instrumentation/visibility to the upper layers. All that said, you can do acceptable quality WebRTC voice and video over 4G LTE today. But you do nee…

I get rather fine Skype video over 3G and 4G.
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