mux.com (and also agora.io and so on) is a great service, but very expensive since it's a server solution. I can't use that.
Discord is a great client solution, that just uses gateways as a pass-through to hide IP addresses and so on. They described their entire architecture here: https://discord.com/blog/how-discord-handles-two-and-half-million-concurrent-voice-users-using-webrtc Discord ain't the only one with this approach, Instagram has AFAIK the same approach too, since it's cheap and does what it does
I want to use for my social media app (like instagram) this solution too, but without these many custom built things to increase performance. I am a one-man team and I can't handle that complexity; still i don't want to use mux because it's way too expensive for me
I am okay with the stock/standard performance. Does anyone know or can point me to a tutorial, where to start building such webRTC elixier gateway solution for m:m audio/video live streams calls?
maybe there already is code published that I can just copy paste
thanks a lot!!
edit
ive got an answer on their official forum https://elixirforum.com/t/how-to-build-webrtc-m-m-audio-video-live-streams-calls-like-discord-does-client-to-client-via-gateway-for-ip-protection/44956
Discord backend use SFU to forward streams for peers in a videoroom, the description from the discord post:
Discord Voice server contains two components: a signaling component and a media relay component called the selective forwarding unit or SFU. The signaling component fully controls the SFU and is responsible for generating stream identifiers and encryption keys, forwarding speaking indication, etc.
Note that the projects in answer are written in Elixir(based on Erlang) programming language, which is not very common used in neither live streaming nor WebRTC. For example, FFmpeg, x264, libopus, WebRTC, SRS, all these audio/video components are written in C++, you'd better think about it.
For a video chat product like discord:
The client app, no doubt, could be built on WebRTC, both H5 and mobile.
For SFU server, recommend C++ server, for example, SRS or mediasoup. Because the whole audio/video economy is C++ based, there're lots of stuff to handle for SFU.
About the signaling server, also called videoroom, could be written by nodejs or Go, because it depends on your business, so highly recommend your best skilled language, there're lots of work to do in this server.
And not all peers in a video room need to publish video stream, instead they only play or consume streams, so it's actually low latency live streaming. For more information about live streaming and video chat, please read this post.
I'm planing to make android app the need of it is to recognize building in the city .
I need help in choose the most important unique features in the buildings ,such that the size of the features stay small as it will not be a practical application if the size of the database become large , is running the application offline possible or i should send the features to remote server for processing the similarity between the pictures ?
Actually, you could choose some simple but effective features(building logo, the foreground of the building) for recognizing offline.
In order to make the result more accuracy, you cound send the GPS information back to the server.
Do not only recognize the building by analyzing the picture, sometimes ,you can get more information from the Android.
Good luck.
I've made my app running on the Google Glass, but it's a little slow in real time. Is there a way to connect my Android phone with the Glass for data communication, so that the phone can take care of the calculation, and the Glass only show the result? The Glass can tether with Android phone by bluetooth, so it should be able to transmit data via it?
Don't know if it's possible to run my app on cloud server and send the result back to my Glass, but guessing that would be slow as well.
Any suggestion is more than welcome! thanks.
Yes, you can connect your Android phone with Glass for data communication, to receive internet content for example. This can be accomplished using Glass to WiFi (but you need the phone to set this up the first time), or Glass to phone to Bluetooth if your phone supports bluetooth tethering, which is often a carrier option.
If you are a Glass explorer this should have been explained when you picked up your Glass, but you can contact the Glass Guides for more information, if you are a Glass Explorer you will have this contact information. I have found them to be extremely helpful and fun to work with on usability questions. It doesn't hurt that if you visit them physically they ply you with treats and drinks.
If you are asking if you can open a socket directly between phone and Glass, that is not supported functionality, but you can request it. It might be possible when the GDK is made public, but there is no timeline for that.
If you wanted to do calculations on a phone and pass them to glass they would have to go through the cloud, as described here. Check out the section titled "How developers interact with Glass" and the accompanying graphic. I find it to be fast (sub one second with good connectivity), but that is subjective, your speed needs are not well defined in your question. A consideration is that every round trip of data will count against your API console daily limit, which is 1000 for most everyone. There is also a 10 request/second limitation.
Last note - there are unsupported ways of talking directly between Glass and a phone for a device you have direct access to, but this is not supported, and could not be used by other Glass users very easily. The techniques to accomplish this are alluded to in the Google I/O 2013 session: Voiding Your Warranty: Hacking Glass.
This forum isn't an appropriate one to discuss this, if you were to contact me directly somehow I could give you some pointers in the right direction, but I don't advise this route at all.
I have to prepare a comparison between the following technologies to present it to my Project Manager, but I fell that I'm lost, so if any one can help I will be thankful
I want to compare between them in the following areas:
the support of online video streaming
the budget of using each one
Learning Time will be needed to learn the technology
Which one is the standard and will target a lot of users
The support if I found any problem
Bugs and security issues
connection to DB, SOA and web services
supporting of multi player
The support of online video streaming
Some of the X3D viewers support video streaming (and some even 3D streaming, for things such as augmented reality).
Which one is the standard and will target a lot of users
X3D is a standardized format, such as JPEG with multiple companies being able to manipulate such data and is even officially recommended by HTML5 specs whereas Unity ties you to a single company. Even if most X3D viewers are plugin-based like Flash, there exists also native implementations such as X3DOM to display/interact with X3D files for any browser that supports WebGL.
Connection to DB, SOA and web services
I would usually recommend using a webservice for interfacing with a DB, and yes, X3D can interact with webservices (XML, JSON). There is even a standard binary format that is fast to transfer and parse large contents faster.
Supporting of multi player
Some X3D-supporting providers offer a multiusers service, such as Bitmanagement's BS Collaborate server, but I've seen people using Darkstar/RedDwarf to make multiusers 3D environments as well.
the support of online video streaming
Unity 3D does not support video streaming, unless done through textures, which will give you a really slow frame rate.
I don't know for sure about X3D, but I would doubt it was really made for such tasks.
Silver light has good video support, it should be easy to stream with.
HTML only supports streaming video if using HTML 5, for which it gives the best user experience when user's browser supports it.
Flash is the de-facto for video streaming. It is extensively widespread. They use it for YouTube for example.
the budget of using each one
The cheapest of them all is HTML, it is free. Then you can theoretically set up something for free in flash using Flex SDK and server streaming technology such as Red5 (both open source and free). After that, I believe that all others would probably be on par cost wise, Unity3D coming in as the cheapest of the paid alternatives.
Learning Time will be needed to learn the technology
Listed in order of fastest one to learn to slowest (assuming no prior experience in any):
HTML
Flash/Silverlight
Unity3D
X3D
Which one is the standard and will target a lot of users
Flash is the most widespread. Its only competitor would be HTML 5, as new browsers tend to support it and its the only possible option on iOS. On the other hand, if 3D is what you want, then Unity3D is the standard for now, might be followed by HTML 5 in the future.
The support if I found any problem
Well, Unity3D would offer you good paid support, flash and silver light also (but only when you pay for streaming server licenses). HTML, X3D will not give you any support, but you can find a lot of information on the internet. There is also extensive information about Flash and Silverlight on the internet, but mostly Flash.
Bugs and security issues
All are pretty secure, I'm just not sure about X3D, but all others are comparable in term of security or bug issues.
connection to DB, SOA and web services
Easy to do with HTML, Flash and Silverlight. Harder with Unity3D, and hardest with X3D.
supporting of multi player
Multi-player what? If you are making a game, then clearly I would say your real options are Unity3D if the game is to be in 3D, Flash if it is to be done in 2D. Check out SmartFoxServer for easy multiplayer server.
My 2 cents:
the support of online video streaming:
Some X3D players do support it. Unity does in some ways : http://unity3d.com/unity/features/audio-and-video
the budget of using each one:
X3D and Unity3d are free. You can pay for Unity licenses for extra features and platforms like iOS and Android. If you need to write plugins for Unity, you'll need the $1500 license. There are no costs for distribution of Unity products.
Learning Time will be needed to learn the technology:
Both X3D and Unity3d have active communities and many online resources and offline books. Unfortunately for X3D, the best content creation tool (Vivaty Studio) is no longer supported officially, but X3D is supported in Maya, Max, Blender, and many other 3D programs. Unity's online docs are excellent and the answers.unity3d.com forum (and other forums) are free and fast.
Which one is the standard and will target a lot of users:
'Standard' Well, HTML is the broadest standard. X3D (if including VRML) is the oldest most widely used 3D standard. HTML you have. HTML5 is coming, 'real soon now' (I'm already turning blue). If you mean 'most readily available' the HTML is #1, Flash is #2 (as everyone has a browser, and most computers come with Flash installed already). Flash needs to be installed. Unity needs to be installed too, but it's at least as fast and easy to install as Flash, and it's gotten millions of downloads, so it's getting pretty pervasive. X3D requires a plugin (this should change sometime 'real soon now' with x3dom on HTML5), but the many X3D players are all a little different from each other.
The support if I found any problem:
All have much online community support. X3D has a spec committee but that's not really support per se, you'd have to contact the X3D plugin provider (Bitmanagement, Cortona, Octaga, Exit Reality, Fraunhoffer, etc.) Unity has great online community forums, you can pay for premium support, but I'd only do that if I needed a serious bug or feature that has no work-around.
Bugs and security issues:
X3D's bugs depend on which player you use. Unity has bugs, but the product is pretty solid (I've only crashed it once, and I use is all day, every day, for over a year). Both have a mind toward security, but neither of these are totally secure, especially since you can write scripts that are inherently not secure. So you have a hand in how secure YOUR content will be. Some X3D players support encryption. Unity products are compiled.
connection to DB, SOA and web services:
You can use something like AJAX or JSON or whatever in all these platforms, no? So if it's by web service, sure. If by direct local access, I know Unity can do that. Both Unity and Flash require cross-server xml files on the server to allow access cross-domain (in the web player for Unity anyway).
supporting of multi player:
Unity has excellent multi player networking components. X3D (spec) supports it too, but it really depends on which X3D player you go with as to how well it actually works. Worst case, you can use AJAX or JSON or whatever to roll your own.
Which you choose depends mostly on what you want to do with it. Flash is generally the best route right now, unless it's all about 3D, then I'd try Unity. But a year from now, HTML5 alternatives will begin to take over. Flash DOES support 3D, there are different ways it can be done. Vivaty had a full-featured X3D player written in Flash, so it can be done. There are several good 3rd party 3d plugins for Flash.
I totally agree with wildpeaks : )
Connection to DB, SOA and web services: easy to do with HTML, Flash and Silverlight. Harder with Unity3D, and hardest with X3D.
Reply: I think X3D is not hardest.
X3D(X3DOM) can interact with webservices (XML) as very easy in this example/tutorial
Flash supports hardware accelerated 3d, and comes out of the box with 3d support. In addition, there is the papervision library for more advanced 3d. Unity3d is also supported
as a flash library.
I would consider Flex as a real alternative to Flash. It has the same actionscript language, but uses a tag based syntax called MXML, similar to silverlight. Database remoting is extremely simple. You can access your .Net/Java/Php objects directly on the front end without having to deal with serialisation issues. All of the Flash libraries are accessible.
There is also the X3D player from instantreality.org, supporting video streaming & decoding, XMLHttp request via scripting and its free for non commercial usage.
Flash 3D isn't good 3D for any application of real-time 3D. It is 2.5D with some tricks.
X3D is easy to learn for simple things and harder as complexity goes up. It does have the advantage of being VRML with pointy brackets so the free content, examples and toolkits are easily found. I did comparison tests of the various players. BS Contact is the best for the ability to handle the most complex content with the fastest frame rate and rich color palette. Network support is still non-standard although XMLHTTP and database connections are easy to bolt on. As others have said, Instant Reality is coming on fast and supported by people with a deep understanding of the past implementations and future requirements.
The decision comes down to the project type. A simple comparison rating such as you are is misleading at best but thanks for giving it a shot. I've used VRML through all of its incarnations and now X3D for world building and now as a source for 3D models in video work in combination with Sony Vegas. For cost-benefit without the need to use very expensive modeling toolkits, it is the best of all the choices.
In short, I am writing an Android application that I want to have pull data from a remote database. I was looking into .NET web services, but this How to call a SOAP web service on Android question pointed me away from that direction.
Is REST as simple as writing some short PHP to handle something like https://www.example.com/data.php?employee=michael and have it return relevant XML or JSON data? That to me seems like what has been described to me by various sites and videos. Also, is this the best way to do this kind of operation over the internet for mobile devices, desktop applications, etc?
What you describe is pretty much what REST is about. Perhaps, however the URL to michael employee could be something like that:
https://www.example.com/employees/michael
Anyway, the idea with REST is that resources are exposed through URLs and that everything is stateless. This is a very good model to use in order to pull data from a database. It can be used both from mobile as well as desktop applications.
What you are discussing is only a small part of what REST is about. For simply pulling raw data from a database a HTTP based - Type I system is probably sufficient for your needs.