Communication

It's been a while since we updated the Web Real-Time Communication API, so today we're glad to announce a new release. We have built 32 and 64 bit packages for both Ubuntu 11.04 and the latest 11.10 version. The majority of the improvements in this release are under the hood and include better codec support. So now, if you install the GStreamer FFmpeg and ugly plugins* (along with their dependencies), for example, you can use H264. Note that you will have to update your web application if it uses tracks since the separate track lists for audio and video on MediaStream have been merged to a single list of MediaStreamTrack objects.

A new feature we've been experimenting with is support for screen sharing. To test it, simply use the webkitGetUserMedia() function to ask for video (without any camera preferences) and the user will be offered to select "Screen" as a video source. The stream from your desktop can be used as any other stream. You can, for example, send it to someone else using a PeerConnection. Take a look at this blog post for a demonstration.

If you’ve already installed the Web Real-Time Communication API, simply use your package management system to update it to get the latest version. Otherwise go to the installation instructions page to get started.

-- The Ericsson Labs WebRTC Team

* The full names of the required packages differs a bit between the Ubuntu versions. For 11.04 you need gstreamer0.10-ffmpeg and gstreamer0.10-plugins-ugly-multiverse. For 11.10, gstreamer0.10-ffmpeg and gstreamer0.10-plugins-ugly.