Book Image

Getting Started with WebRTC

By : Rob Manson
Book Image

Getting Started with WebRTC

By: Rob Manson

Overview of this book

WebRTC delivers web-based real-time communication and is set to revolutionize our view of what the Web really is. Streaming audio and video from browser to browser, as well as opening raw access to the camera and microphone, is already creating a whole new dynamic web. WebRTC also introduces real-time data channels that will allow interaction with dynamic data feeds from sensors and other devices. This really is a great time to be a web developer! Getting Started with WebRTC provides all of the practical information you need to quickly understand what WebRTC is, how it works, and how you can add it to your own web applications. It includes clear working examples designed to help you get started building your own WebRTC-enabled applications right away. Getting Started with WebRTC will guide you through the process of creating your own WebRTC application that can be applied in a number of different real-world situations, using well documented and clearly explained code examples. You will learn how to quickly and easily create a practical peer-to-peer video chat application, an audio only call option, and how a Web-Socket-based signaling server can also be used to enable real-time text-based chat. You will also be shown how this same server and application structure can easily be extended to include simple drag-and-drop file sharing with transfer updates and thumbnail previews.
Table of Contents (15 chapters)
Getting Started with WebRTC
Credits
About the Author
About the Reviewers
www.PacktPub.com
Preface
Index

Previewing the local video streams


To preview the local video streams, we implement the setup_video() function. This requests access to the local camera's video stream using the getUserMedia call.

If this stream is set up successfully, then it is displayed on the local browser page in the <video> media element with the local_video ID using the connect_stream_to_src() function defined in webrtc_polyfill.js.

If this local stream is not set up successfully, then the error is logged so the user can be notified.

// setup stream from the local camera
function setup_video() {
   get_user_media(
    {
      "audio": true, // request access to local microphone
      "video": true  // request access to local camera
    },
    function (local_stream) { // success callback
      // preview the local camera & microphone stream
      connect_stream_to_src(
        local_stream,
        document.getElemntById("local_video")
      );
      ...
    },
    log_error // error callback
  );
}

It is important...