Video chat integration

Matrix uses the jitsi SDK, and as every IPv4 peer-to-peer connection, it too requires a STUN or TURN mechanism if the NAT routers the peers are using make that necessary.

Well, the devs are already hosting this website here, so maybe it is generally possible to host a “turn-server”. Or simply use the Jitsi one.

Great proposal with meeting link, which preserve important option of DC – ubiquitous, you can have no Delta-chat and participate in communication.

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i just had a look at other messengers and how they solve it. While most hide the info that you need access to a turn server to use it properly (e.g. nextcloud, matrix) -i found rocketchat to be using jitsi meet - as proposed here.

An implantation similar to that may be an idea.

Cool, thanks for looking around.

I wonder whether Rocketchat and Jitsi have some agreement over the usage of the Jitsi server…

I hope I’m not too late to the party. Recently I noticed guys behind PeerTube (fully decentralized network for storing and sharing videos - pretty much like youtube, but without any central nor federated authority) want to implement real-time video conferencing capabilities.

What about Delta using their app/SDK? It sounds to me simpler than integrating e.g. Jitsi SDK which is dependent on at least one non-email server and thus not the best fit for Delta’s decentralization goals (btw. I love Jitsi and use it from around the world for some years already, but I don’t think it’s the best fit for Delta).

Btw. another benefit of PeerTube could be to overcome the ~25MByte attachment size limit by simply using PeerTube as storage. This is though not a well though out idea, so take it with bigger grain of salt.

Do you have some links to these peertube things?

https://joinpeertube.org/ :wink::grinning_face_with_smiling_eyes:

nah i mean like a link to the blogpost/announcement/livestream/whatever that they are doing stuff with video calls/conferencing. :laughing:

@Simon I guess what he means is the plan to add live streaming to PeerTube v3:

https://framablog.org/2020/05/26/our-plans-for-peertube-v3-progressive-fundraising-live-streaming-coming-next-fall/

P2P Livestreaming is quite nice, but not really usefull for video calling on its own.
For example: Its acceptable to have 1-4 minutes delay in livestreaming, which isn’t acceptable for video calls/

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Have a look at Meething: https://github.com/meething/meething

Best, Gerry

Meta: @gerryfrancis you can omit the message footer/greeting if you want in this forum.

Thanks for the link, unfortunately there demo site seems to be down for me so I can’t test it.
Maybe its architecture could give us inspiration when planning it. but generally there is not much new stuff:

  • they use a STUN server to help the peers to connect.
  • whats new to me is the decentelization project they are using: https://gun.eco/, maybe that’s worth to look into
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Ref. [WebRTC-related] developments in NC Talk:

Hopefully this is the right place for a suggestion:

I notice in the Settings|Advanced under Experimental Features there’s a place for adding a URL for the Video Chat Instance. Manually adding in the suggested value for Jitsi, https://meet.jit.si/$ROOM, seems to work pretty well (if all participants have the Jitsi app installed). This adds what looks to me like the last thing lacking for DC to be a drop-in replacement for WhatsApp or Signal (for me at least).

But manually typing in that URL is annoying and error-prone; I doubt I could guide non-technical family members through this from afar.

I’d like to suggest adding UX to add the Jitsi URL as a one-tap process; maybe three radio-buttons:

  • Disabled
  • Jitsi
  • Other (and selecting this enables a text box for manual entry)

Even better, for me personally, would be if Jitsi were selected by default when the app is installed (that way, I can just ask my relatives and friends to install the app and put in their email details, and video calls will ‘just work’).

Thoughts?

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hi @robertfromont,

first of all - welcome aboard!

indeed, the entering of the webrtc-server can be improved :slight_smile:

among your ideas, this is what came to some developers mind and what is discussed internally:

  • allowing to right-tap or long-tap a videochat-invitation and having an option as “Use this setting for my own videochat invitations”
  • allow to scan the setting from a qr-code
  • using a setting that comes from the autoconfig.xml or from provider-db - so providers can define their defaults.

using a working default as meet.jit.si of course has strong benefits, however, is also discussed controversy internally wrt decentrality.

Thanks! Yes I can see there might be issues picking a centralized provider by default (although things working ‘out of the box’ would make it easier to get some users on board, particularly more socially distant contacts).

Scannability from a QR code is something I wished for first but forgot to mention, and would probably work pretty well for my use-case, as a technical person can organize a video chat URL and just send the URL that way (and can then choose Jitsi, BBB, or whatever else).

I’m not sure how autoconfig.xml and provider-db would work in this context, but they sound like they might suit a well-defined group of users, and not so much a my own use case: trying to get my broader social network off FB/WhatsApp in particular and centralized messengers in general; not just for the sake of chatting with me, but so they can communicate with each other.

DC otherwise looks like a perfect fit, thanks for the great work!

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Even better, for me personally, would be if Jitsi were selected by default when the app is installed (that way, I can just ask my relatives and friends to install the app and put in their email details, and video calls will ‘just work’).

I came to this forum today to make the same suggestion. Being able to configure your own WebRTC server is excellent, but a default working implementation would be very useful for normal people who don’t know what that means. The current “Invite to a video chat” Ok/Cancel dialog that appears could use some better language with a “Learn more” link that explains to the user that this feature uses an Jitsi Meet server along with documentation/links about other supported WebRTC server types and maybe links about making your own. Maybe on first press, the video chat dialogue could even ask the user if they want to use Jitsi Meet as their default free Video Chat server. Currently the “This requires a compatible app or compatible browser on both ends” text is very vague. What apps are compatible? What browsers are compatible? A normal user would have no idea.

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Predetermining a server is very good, on the other hand avoiding centralization is also important.

So maybe a solution is that in the first installation, delta can randomly choose a server of at least 10 of the best known currently.

maybe using the list of http://jitsi.random-redirect.de/ random-redirect.de/

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