Microsoft has announced preview availability of the WebRTC 1.0 API along with support for H.264/AVC and VP8 video codecs for RTC in Microsoft Edge. This will enable plugin-free interoperable video communication solutions across browsers as well as platforms.
Microsoft stated that these features have been enabled by default in Windows Insider Preview builds, starting with last week’s release 15019, and the stable release will start with the
Windows 10 Creator’s Update.
Background and Object RTC
Microsoft Edge has introduced support for ORTC beginning in EdgeHTML 12 (Windows version 1511), providing the initial foundation for real-time communication in Edge.
Microsoft, in its official blog, states.
“Our priority with the WebRTC 1.0 API support is to provide interoperability with legacy implementations on existing websites, which leverage the WebRTC API as previously deployed in other browsers.”
The WebRTC 1.0 API implementation goes on to provide support for peer-to-peer audio and video based on a subset of the W3C WebRTC-PC API circa 2015.
Microsoft states that they do not plan to further update the native WebRTC 1.0 API beyond this release.
The H.264/AVC and VP8 video codecs are supported in the Microsoft Edge RTC stack, which means video communications are now interoperable between Microsoft Edge and other major WebRTC browsers and RTC services. Microsoft, in its official blog, has stated that they have implemented the following congestion control and robustness mechanisms for both H.264/AVC and VP8 video codecs.
- Support for the absolute send time header extension (abs-send-time).
- Support for Google Receiver Estimated Maximum Bitrate, “goog-remb”.
- Support for Picture Loss Indication (PLI) and Generic NACK feedback messages, per RFC 4585.
- Support for RTP Retransmission, per RFC 4588.