![]() ![]() It is coming to Chrome, but that’s about it for now. The problem is that simulcast in H.264 isn’t available yet in any of the web browsers. This removes the need of an SFU to transcode media and at the same time, let the SFU offer the most suitable experience for each participant without resorting to lowest common denominator type of strategies. What simulcast does is allows devices to send multiple resolutions/bitrates of the same video towards the server. At least until SVC becomes more widely available. Simulcast is how most of us do group video calls these days. It would be safe to say that all modern Android devices today have H.264 encoder and decoder available in hardware acceleration, which is great. And in Android, you’re living in the wild wild west and not the world wide web. This has changed and now that’s possible.īut there’s also Android to contend with. You could only get it to record a file or playback one. In the past, developers had no access to the H.264 codec on iOS. #1 – You might not have access to a hardware implementation of H.264 To use them, BOTH the encoder and the decode need to support them, which where a lot of the problems you’ll be facing stem from. These additional doozies are there to improve the final quality of the video, but they aren’t always there. I want to start by explaining one thing about video codecs – they come with multiple features, knobs, capabilities, configurations and profiles. WebRTC H.264 Challengesīefore you decide going for a WebRTC H.264 implementation, you should need to take into consideration a few of the challenges associated with it. The fact that Apple decided NOT to implement VP8, doesn’t bar your own mobile app from supporting it. You can use a mobile app with VP8 (or H.264) on iOS devices. Before we dive into them though, there’s one more thing I want to make clear: Especially in leveraging hardware based encoding in WebRTC H.264 implementations. You want to leverage hardware based encoding and decoding to increase battery life on your mobile devices.You already have H.264 equipment, so don’t want to transcode – be it cameras, video conferencing gear or the need to broadcast via HLS or RTMP.There are reasons why one would like to use H.264: It nicely supports simulcast, so quite friendly to video group calling scenarios.I know there’s FUD around patents in VP8, but for the most part, 100% of the industry is treating it as free Royalty free, so no need to deal with patents and payments and whatnot.It has been there from the start, so its implementation is highly optimized already.There are reasons why one would like to use VP8: Leaving aside the question of what mandatory really means in English (leaving it here for the good people at Apple to review), that makes only a fraction of the whole story. Chrome, Firefox and Edge implement VP8 and H.264. ![]() So… which of these video codecs should you use in your application? Here’s a free mini video course to help you decide.įast forward to today, and you have this interesting conundrum: ![]()
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