Yup... WebRTC Still Sucks
0 likes231 views
This document summarizes Dan Jenkins' frustrations with developing WebRTC applications in browsers. It outlines inconsistencies across browsers in APIs like getUserMedia and screen sharing. It also discusses challenges with mobile WebRTC, lack of support for features like background blur, and lack of documentation around advanced encoding options. However, it acknowledges that WebRTC remains a powerful tool for real-time communication due to its support on many devices and ability to traverse NATs with sub-second latency. It encourages developers to provide feedback to help improve the WebRTC experience.
Yup... WebRTC Still Sucks
- 2. Dan Jenkins WebRTC & Real Time Media Geek @dan_jenkins Founder - broadcaster.vc Photo Credits of Indiana Jones stills to Paramount Pictures/Lucas Film
- 5. st
- 13. (Don't say I didn't warn you)
- 15. Indiana Jones has no effect on the ending of Raiders of the Lost Ark (Everyone knows this... don't they?)
- 16. "If he weren't in the movie the Nazis would still find the Ark, still have taken it to the island, opened it up, and died"Amy Farrah Fowler
- 32. Why do we have to do a getUserMedia call to ask permission to enumerate devices?
- 33. Do I hate working with the WebRTC Stats API?
- 34. Are some of the APIs defined by the W3C completely and utterly frustrating?
- 36. But I'm not here to talk about those either.
- 39. Who here has developed with the WebRTC browser APIs?
- 43. (But acts like a 3 year old)
- 45. Inconsistent user experiences getUserMedia behaves differently in Firefox, Chrome and Safari & getUserMedia trust is different in Firefox, Chrome and Safari
- 46. Screen sharing is totally inconsistent across all browsers
- 47. Working against the browser's permissions models on mobile to get a usable experience
- 48. WebRTC on mobile should be amazing. Its truly terrible though* *(For developers)
- 49. iOS Webview doesn't support background audio (This means any browser other than Safari on iOS)
- 50. API's that just don't appear to work properly at all applyConstraints on an existing audio track just doesn't work in Chrome It works perfectly in Safari
- 51. SVC is the future VP9 is now supported in Chrome, Firefox and Safari But how do you enable VP9 SVC? Origin trial? Flags when starting the browser? In Chrome... flags yes... but also munging SDP with secret sauce you only know once you make a sacrifice
- 53. How can a browser only have one developer* working on WebRTC? (I'm looking at you apple) *It looks like there's only one developer working on WebRTC at Apple... I don't know for certain
- 54. Background Blur reached "rough consensus" in May Nothing's happened so far? Yet huge progress on other APIs that browser vendors want (This one's a bit unfair... but I included it anyway)
- 55. Yup... got to SDP munge for that. Along with many many other features - you shouldn't have to read libWebRTC source code to find out what's possible
- 57. (It's not just WebRTC... as we've heard from other presentations)
- 59. Developing Browser WebRTC applications can be extremely frustrating
- 60. I wish the WebRTC browser experience was better
- 64. (And so is Indiana Jones)
- 66. Almost all devices in your pockets support WebRTC out of the box (Something Webcodecs and Webtransport won't have for years)
- 67. Sub Second E2EE Data Transfer between clients behind NAT
- 68. (Yes I'm looking at you Zoom)
- 70. Independent* WebRTC implementations Pion WebRTC.rs GStreamer pi.pe *(They don't rely on libWebRTC)
- 71. Janus Mediasoup FreeSWITCH Livekit (built with Pion) Jitsi Medooze Sora *Plus others I've missed
- 72. Standardised* playback and publishing signalling standards WHEP and WHIP *soon
- 73. And most importantly... you don't need an extra app download... just a url in a browser
- 75. But it is still one of the very best tools in the box for real time media (Real time means being able to hold a conversation... ie. sub-second)
- 77. Default Security NAT busting Open Source License Free Works on any device with just a url Pion
- 79. "A loose grouping of WebRTC developers who give input/feedback to the W3C WebRTC working group."
- 80. The only way to make things better is to have developer voices heard
- 82. Choose Wisely Be more like Indiana Jones (I'm well aware this isn't Raiders of the Lost Ark)
- 83. Choose WebRTC
- 85. Dan Jenkins @dan_jenkins broadcaster.vc Photo Credits of Indiana Jones stills to Paramount Pictures/Lucas Film