Introduction of WebRTC technology in Modern browsers

Again i am back with another interesting technology called WebRTC . This is especially a relevant topic in this networking era .  WebRTC – Web Real Time Communication is a set of protocols and Api’s that enable real time communication over peer to peer connection .

In 2011 , Google released browser based webRTC project and this technology will help you to make different apps like  video conferencing , file transfer , chats and desktop sharing with out any external applications or plugins .

WebRTC uses real time transfer protocols (RTP) to transfer video and audio over peer connection . This is completely open source and free under the terms of BSD licence . WebRTC supports on Chrome , Mozilla , Opera , Microsoft edge , Android browsers , Blackberry 10 etc.

If you prefer a video tutorial then you can check this video post

If you’d prefer written instructions, just keep reading.

Main components of WebRTC technology

These are the main API components and  building blocks of webRTC technology .

• getUserMedia – This API helps to access user webcam and microphone
• RTCPeerConnection – Helps to setup video and audio calls between peer connection , It take care of encoding & decoding NAT traversal etc .
• RTCDataChannel – Helps to share data over peer connection
• getStats – Helps to get webRTC session

Why we use WebRTC technology?

WebRTC is free of plugins and free of  frameworks technology . You just need only a webRTC compatible browser . How simple it is ? . It seems like no need of money for the bandwidth on wire . No need of sending data to the server first . We can get direct communication between wire . Let me explain this with the real time example : When we trying to upload a file with out webRTC technology  , first you should upload the file to a server and after that server will send file back to recipient . Here with webRTC technology, It will send the file directly to the peer with RTCDataChanel API . So the performance is much higher than normal server -client application .

In this tutorial series , I am introducing the webRTC components tutorials first and after that let’s move to write a  basic webRTC application with a signaling server . WebRTC coding is more interesting rather than explain the technical notes .

Requirements to write a basic WebRTC application

• Client Side – Basics of HTML , CSS and JavaScript
• Server Side – Basics of NodeJS with webSocket server ( Optional , We will cover this topic in upcoming posts )

If you are interested and you want to test with writing a webRTC application from scratch , Just go though our posts ,  Write a WebRTC Application – Programming from scratch 

• Part 1 – How to Create a Simple App Like A Pro 
• Part 2 – Create a server with Node.js for the App
• Part 3 – Design your first WebRTC App

Conclusion

I hope you got a overview of one of the emerging technology – webRTC . Just through the technology and try ti understand . After that try to make a sample Application and explore your self .

If you have any feedback or tips , We are really happy to hear them . See you again !!

About the Author

Vinay KP is the founder of Engineering Semester blog . He is currently working as a software engineer . He is a very passionate blogger with Interest in research oriented technical articles .

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