WebRTC Scalable Broadcast

Scalable WebRTC peer-to-peer broadcasting demo.

This module simply initializes socket.io and configures it in a way that single broadcast can be relayed over unlimited users without any bandwidth/CPU usage issues. Everything happens peer-to-peer!

Demos

1. index.html - share video or screen or audio over unlimited users using p2p methods.
2. share-files.html - share files with unlimited users using p2p methods!

Browsers Support:

Browser	Support
Firefox	Stable / Aurora / Nightly
Google Chrome	Stable / Canary / Beta / Dev

Browsers Comparison

host means the browser that is used to forward remote-stream.

Host	Streams	Receivers	Issues
Chrome	Audio+Video	Chrome,Firefox	Remote audio tracks are skipped.
Chrome	Audio	None	Chrome can NOT forward remote-audio
Chrome	Video	Chrome,Firefox	No issues
Chrome	Screen	Chrome,Firefox	No issues
Firefox	Audio+Video	Chrome,Firefox	No issues
Firefox	Audio+Screen	Chrome,Firefox	No issues
Firefox	Audio	Chrome,Firefox	No issues
Firefox	Video	Chrome,Firefox	No issues
Firefox	Screen	Chrome,Firefox	No issues

1. First column shows browser name
2. Second column shows type of remote-stream forwarded
3. Third column shows browsers that can receive the remote forwarded stream
4. Fourth column shows sender's i.e. host's issues

Chrome-to-Firefox interoperability also works!

Android devices are NOT tested yet. Opera is also NOT tested yet (though Opera uses same chromium code-base).

Currently you can't share audio in Chrome out of this big. In case of audio+video stream, chrome will skip remote-audio tracks forwarding. However chrome will keep receiving remote-audio from Firefox!

Firefox

Firefox additionally allows remote-stream-forwarding for:

1. Streams captured from <canvas>
2. Streams captured from <video>
3. Streams captured or generated by AudioContext i.e. WebAudio API

Is stream keeps quality?

Obviously "nope". It will have minor side-effects (e.g. latency in milliseconds/etc.).

If you'll be testing across tabs on the same system, then you'll obviously notice quality lost; however it will NOT happen if you test across different systems.

In the image, you can see that each NEW-peer is getting stream from most-recent peer instead of getting stream directly from the moderator.

npm install webrtc-scalable-broadcast

# goto node_modules>webrtc-scalable-broadcast
cd node_modules
cd webrtc-scalable-broadcast

# and run the server.js file
node server.js

Or install using WGet:

mkdir webrtc-scalable-broadcast && cd webrtc-scalable-broadcast
wget http://dl.webrtc-experiment.com/webrtc-scalable-broadcast.tar.gz
tar -zxvf webrtc-scalable-broadcast.tar.gz
ls -a
node server.js

Or directly download the TAR/archive on windows:

• http://dl.webrtc-experiment.com/webrtc-scalable-broadcast.tar.gz

And now open: http://localhost:8888 or 127.0.0.1:8888.

If server.js fails to run:

# if fails,
lsof -n -i4TCP:8888 | grep LISTEN
kill process-ID

# and try again
node server.js

How it works?

Above image showing terminal logs explains it better.

For more details, to understand how this broadcasting technique works:

• https://github.com/muaz-khan/WebRTC-Experiment/issues/2

Assuming peers 1-to-10:

First Peer:

Peer1 is the only peer that invokes getUserMedia. Rest of the peers will simply forward/relay remote stream.

peer1 captures user-media
peer1 starts the room

Second Peer:

peer2 joins the room
peer2 gets remote stream from peer1
peer2 opens a "parallel" broadcasting peer named as "peer2-broadcaster"

Third Peer:

peer3 joins the room
peer3 gets remote stream from peer2
peer3 opens a "parallel" broadcasting peer named as "peer3-broadcaster"

Fourth Peer:

peer4 joins the room
peer4 gets remote stream from peer3
peer4 opens a "parallel" broadcasting peer named as "peer4-broadcaster"

Fifth Peer:

peer5 joins the room
peer5 gets remote stream from peer4
peer5 opens a "parallel" broadcasting peer named as "peer5-broadcaster"

and 10th peer:

peer10 joins the room
peer10 gets remote stream from peer9
peer10 opens a "parallel" broadcasting peer named as "peer10-broadcaster"

Conclusion

1. Peer9 gets remote stream from peer8
2. Peer15 gets remote stream from peer14
3. Peer50 gets remote stream from peer49

and so on.

License

Scalable WebRTC Broadcasting Demo is released under MIT licence . Copyright (c) Muaz Khan.