Re: [rtcweb] Additional requirement - audio-only communication

[Justin Uberti <[e-mail]>]

On Thu, Aug 25, 2011 at 8:01 PM, Timothy B. Terriberry <
[e-mail]> wrote:

> Justin Uberti wrote:
>
>> I think it makes sense for the browser to emit capabilities, which could
>>
>
> I agree there's clearly some gaps here that need to be filled.
>
>
>  then be used by the web app to generate a SDP offer or answer. This
>>
>
>  The original problem that started this email is one specific example -
>> if the callee application wants to only receive audio, the application
>> can generate an audio-only SDP based on the offer, the browser
>>
>
> I think the Harald's original problem was the other way around: the
> _caller_ wants to only receive audio, and needs to generate an SDP _offer_
> that says that, even if the browser is capable of receiving video. I don't
> think that invalidates your point, though.
>
>
>  capabilities, and the desired app behavior - without any new APIs in the
>> browser.
>>
>
> But I'm not sure what you mean by "without any new APIs"... in your
> approach, something has to be able to enumerate the capabilities in
> sufficient detail for the webapp to generate SDP by itself. I don't think
> there are any existing APIs that go that far.
>

I meant, without specific APIs for that specific use case (i.e. "create an
audio-only offer"). We would need some sort of GetCapabilities API that
returned a blob of all the session description options the browser
supported, which probably could be formatted as a uber SDP offer if that
made parsing simplest.

>
> You also need an API to tell the browser what to actually do. The current
> PeerConnection approach is passing in the offer or the answer. If you're
> generating the answer, you need some way to tell your browser what you
> answered. For the "please don't send me video" case this is not an issue...
> it'll simply never arrive. If you want to change what the local browser is
> sending out, however, then it is.
>

Yes, you need a "HandleLocalDescription" and "HandleRemoteDescription" API,
instead of just a single OnSignalingMessage API. The deviation from the
current flow is fairly minor, you just have 2 additional states in the state
machine.

>
> I do agree it eliminates the need for an API to tell the browser what kind
> of SDP to generate, but it also seems like it imposes a pretty big burden on
> application developers: even if you keep the currently-proposed
> PeerConnection ability to generate SDP as the "simple API", the moment you
> want to do something slightly more complex, you have to add code to generate
> the appropriate SDP, which necessarily involves figuring out all the
> capabilities of the various browsers on various platforms. Maybe I'm naive
> in thinking that seems like an awful lot of work just to say, "Please don't
> send me video."


It's a fair point, there is more complexity involved in generating the
offer, but in our experience it is manageable. I suppose it depends on how
many APIs we decide we need to control the generation of SDP  (i.e. use
cases other than no-video). If we decide we need to control crypto,
resolution preference, codec preference, we may find this approach simpler.

>
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