HTML5 and RTSP to develop a browser based web conference app

Question

Greetings to you all!

I want to develop an application that would be able to hold web conference without the users having to download any installable files. After doing some research I have found that flash is perhaps the only option I might have as JMF needs access to registries.

I would like to know if you have any suggestions.

Is it possible to use RTSP with HTML5 to develop the required application.

P.S The application shall be free for all, so I hope you would take the pain to answer. Thanks in advance!

Answer 1

In theory, yes, but is it browser specific.

HTML 5's <video> tag is protocol agnostic—it will not care what you have there. You place the protocol in the src attribute as part of the URL. E.g.:

<video src="rtp://myserver.com/path/to/stream">
    Your browser does not support the VIDEO tag and/or RTP streams.
</video>

The problem is that the implementation of the <video> tag is browser specific. Since it is still early days for HTML 5, I expect frequently changing support (or lack of support).

And then you still have to worry about browser specific CODEC support! Flash is, at least today, the "more universal" approach--you'll cover a larger percentage of the web browsing public.

My suggestion is to either

1. User Flex/Flash
2. Become an expert on web browsers and enjoy coding on the bleeding edge