Supporting HEVC/H.265 videos in Electron - javascript

Chrome/Electron don't normally support H.265 videos. I want the user to be able to play .mov files recorded by Apple devices in my app. How can I do this?
Possible approaches:
Use ffmpeg to transcode to H.264 in real-time, which will be resource intensive (not ideal)
Use WebAssembly to render the video in a <canvas> tag (not ideal)
Fork and manually add H.265 codec support to Chrome/Electron like https://github.com/AAAhs/electron-hevc (overkill)
Use a native module that renders the video in a <canvas> or BrowserView

We ran into a similar problem on our project where users from the iOS app were sending video messages to browser users. In the end, the easiest solution to the problem was to record the video manually in the h264 codec. An example from the documentation:
https://developer.apple.com/documentation/avfoundation/cameras_and_media_capture/capturing_video_in_alternative_formats

Related

Embed video in HTML page

I have an IP CAM which provides access to the audio/video using RTSP protocol. I can see the video using VLC player but I would like to be able to embed this video in a HTML5 page.
I know most browsers cant handle RTSP with HTML5. So I was wondering: is there any PHP code that I can use to parse RTSP video and output a compatible Chrome video format that I can play using <video> tag? Is there someway PHP output some stream of data so I can send it to the browser parse it into HTML5 video container?
You could use ffmpeg to trascode from RTSP and HLS and then display that in a browser which supports it:
Something like this will give you a starting point, though you may need to tune it. If you're going off your own local network though you may need to use a 3rd party streaming solution like Azure Media Services or Wowza
ffmpeg -i rtsp:<stream> -fflags flush_packets -max_delay 1 -an -flags -global_header -hls_time 1 -hls_list_size 3 -hls_wrap 3 -vcodec copy -y <file>.m3u8

How do in-browser audio players work?

I've doing Javascript programming for some time but it's always been related to data updating, saving, manipulating, etc.
I have no idea how something like an in-browser audio player gets audio (especially live, streaming audio) from the internet and plays it out of my computer speakers.
How does this happen in Javascript?
For example, how does a website deliver live audio to my speakers using Javascript? http://player.streamtheworld.com/liveplayer.php?callsign=WVIEAM
The live audio is not much different from pre-recorded audio... it's just played back as it's received, and when live it's encoded as it's recorded.
In browsers these days, the most basic form of streaming audio is a simple <audio> tag. By changing the src attribute from a file to a stream, you're up and running:
<audio src="http://cdn.audiopump.co/waug/main_mp3_256k" />
The browser doesn't know or care in this case that the audio is a live stream. All it knows is that there's some media data that it's fetching via HTTP, and playing back while it comes in.
If your browser compatibility is good, it would be preferable to use the MediaSource API, giving you more control (such as switching to a different quality stream mid-stream, like in HLS) and ensuring that the browser doesn't try to cache what is effectively an inifinitely sized file.
For example, how does a website deliver live audio to my speakers using Javascript? http://player.streamtheworld.com/liveplayer.php?callsign=WVIEAM
This particular site is ran by Triton Digital, and they still use Flash. Many sites still do this as a holdover from a time when HTML5 audio was not widely supported. There is little reason to do this today.
Other reasons to use Flash include incompatible server protocols. If your streaming server is using RTMP, you're stuck with Flash as browsers don't speak RTMP.
There used to be an issue with streaming AAC in-browser due to browsers not properly handling AAC wrapped in ADTS. (This encapsulation is required for streaming AAC in most situations.) Most browsers have resolved this, but I suspect that this is the reason Triton Digital is still using their Flash solution. By using Flash, they can play AAC/ADTS streams.

Live Streaming to Browser

I'm a bit at my wits end here.
I want to stream a live video broadcast to a web browser.
Currently I use ffmpeg to stream a directshow live source as a webm stream to node.js which then forwards the stream to the http request from the <video> element. So far everything works.
live source -> ffmpeg -> POST [webm] -> node.js -> GET [webm] -> video tag
My problem is that the source clock and the web clients clock doesn't exactly match each other (not that surprising). For video this is not a problem, dropping or duplicating a frame every now and then is not noticeable. However, with audio it is another issue. From what I've been able to figure out so far Chrome (or any other browser) does not perform any form of audio resampling compensation (e.g. swr_set_compensation from ffmpeg) to compensate this mismatch. Instead I get quite audible audio distortions (a loud beep) when the playback buffer runs out of samples.
My question is whether it is possible to achieve proper playback (with audio) of a live source in a web browser?
I haven't tried using silverlight or flash for playback yet. Would that possibly work better?
Live media (audio or/and video) streaming to a web browser has been possible for a couple of years though it is still making progress as of today. It is the next big thing for media on the web and many platforms like Youtube are already on board.
A typical live media streaming scenario is:
audio/video feed > transcoding > streaming > player
At each step you have several technological possibilities available. However I should already mention here that the road to live media streaming is paved with proprietary technologies.
audio/video feed: either raw or very lightly compressed media format and cannot be uploaded as such to the Internet. You need to transcode it. You may have to use a grabbing device like a PCI Express card or USB/thunderbolt device to get your cam onto a computer.
transcoding: you have software (ffmpeg, Flash media live encoder, Wirecast) or hardware solutions (streamingmedia.com has a wealth of information on the subject like here). H264/AAC is the current media professional standard and streams are often transcoded to multiple renditions (bitrate) to suit different network conditions.
streaming: you most likely need to target multiple devices to deliver your live stream. Not all devices support the same streaming protocol. HLS works on Apple devices and Android > 4.1. HDS or RTMP works in Flash, Smooth streaming in Silverlight. You cannot reach all devices with one protocol so in this case you would need a streaming server like Wowza or Red5. A streaming server take as an input a transcoded live stream and prepare it for cross device delivery while sustaining a massive number of simultaneous connections (over a thousand is not uncommon nowadays). It can also add functionalities like DVR or DRM. As of today the effort is around HTTP adaptive bitrate delivery. Large companies add CDN support for global delivery.
player: to display your live stream with various options like custom layout, closed captions, ads, chat module and more. Flash has been leading the market up until now for live media streaming on desktop. You can use HTML5 video for iOS and Android where HLS is supported.
Coming in fast is MPEG DASH and it works live with HTML5 video. There is a JS lib that supports live. I have tested it and it works though I may not use it for a production case scenario just yet as it is still a bit clunky (on demand support is better) and browser support is narrow at the moment (As of 8/30/13, Desktop Chrome, Desktop Internet Explorer 11, and Mobile Chrome Beta for Android are the only browsers supported).
I cannot comment much on your solution because I have not used node.js for streaming but it sounds like an interesting effort. A typical solution I would use relating to your case:
Device > ffmpeg (H264/AAC) > Wowza > Hybrid player (Flash + HTML5).
Instead of Wowza you could use Red5 (free/open source - but not much activity as of late). You can also look into Nginx RTMP module which supports HLS and MPEG DASH on top of RTMP.
For flash I use Strobe from Adobe which support live streaming and is easy to set up and a fallback to HTML5 where flash is not supported. I use SWFObject lib to detect flash support and feed a HLS URL to an HTML5 video tag for mobile devices. You can use RTSP for Android < 4.1 and other mobile devices.
Another thing I should mention is real time communications. For video/audio conferencing you could have a look at WebRTC. Those 2 articles should get you on the right track. Here and here. WebRTC will work great for one to few, one to one, few to few. If you need to support more concurrent connections you can have a look at Licode or tokbox.

HTML5 base64 encoded audio on mobile devices

I'm writing a platform with an audio playback component. Audio is uploaded to the server as an wav/mp3/ogg file, and then (like the rest of our media), converted to base64 and stored within our redis database.
To play the audio back at the client side we make an AJAX request to the server for the base64 encoded audio. We have a desktop version that compliments the mobile application, at the moment audio playback works like this:
recording.sound = new Audio("data:audio/ogg;base64," + recording.audio);
recording.sound.play(); // this works
Today we started our tests on mobile devices, and have so far been unable to get it working, even on mobile browsers that apparently support HTML5 audio.
Any ideas? Or if this is not possible, is there a different approach we can take? Ideally there should be a mobile compatible version of the web app, and there has to be a phonegap version.
The reason might not be a technical one here, from Apple developer site:
In Safari on iOS (for all devices, including iPad), where the user may be on a cellular network and be charged per data unit, preload and autoplay are disabled. No data is loaded until the user initiates it. This means the JavaScript play() and load() methods are also inactive until the user initiates playback, unless the play() or load() method is triggered by user action. In other words, a user-initiated Play button works, but an onLoad="play()" event does not.
same applies to Android devices.
read more here: Safari HTML5 Audio and Video Guide
But „audio/wav“ doesn't exist. See spec here: http://www.iana.org/assignments/media-types/audio
You should use „audio/vnd.dts“ for .wav file, „audio/mpeg“ for .mp3 file and „audio/ogg“ for .ogg file...
OK, try StackOverflow search, see:
https://stackoverflow.com/search?q=audio+codec+support+mobile+devices+html5
or https://stackoverflow.com/search?q=audio+codec+support+mobile+devices+html
or try Google
Some search results, that might be useful:
In search for a library that knows to detect support for specific Audio Video format files
or html5 vs flash - full comparison chart anywhere?

Javascript player for web video streaming compatible with iPad, iPhone, etc

I'm looking for a web video player with which I can keep the full compatibility with iOS devices: iPad, iPhone, etc (so I would exclude all Flash video players).
Until now I've used Flowplayer but I have some problems:
the main problem is that using flv files I can start very fastly to play the video but I don't have any compatibility with iOS devices. Instead, using mp4 files, I have the full compatibility with iOS devices but before playing the video I have to wait that all content of the file has been loaded (few minutes).
So my question is: does it exist a video format that allows me to play videos very fastly and also compatible also with iOS devices?
Not talking about HTML5 just yet, lets assume you are first interested in supporting most users and legacy devices. Unless you are using an embedded player, (such as Flash), there is nothing inherent in all browsers and/or JavaScript to allow you to play a video that is standardized across these devices. If you simply reference a link to the video file, you are asking the device to natively download and decode the video file. This is why it does not typically begin playing until the entire file is downloaded. This is dependent on each device having a compatible MIME encoding configured for the file type which points to a player that the browser can invoke to handle the file. When you use something like Flowplayer, usually these Flash applications can begin playing video before it is fully downloaded because it knows how to download the video from your server over HTTP and once it has received enough of the video stream (buffered the video), it can begin playing it. Currently your best option is to use something like you have been using for most devices, and have a separate link to the mp4 for iOS devices. If you just re-encode any videos you already have in FLV or whatever older formats you have been using to mp4, you should be able to play that in a current version of any Flash based player, as Flash will work with those files as well as it's legacy formats.
I've found this resource and it seems to be very good: http://code.google.com/p/php-mobile-detect/

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