Android still image capture support based on getUserMedia has made it into Firefox 15! In terms of functionality, this first piece (still image capture)of getUserMedia is the programmatic equivalent of the <input type=”picture”>. However, it lets app developers play with this API so Mozilla can get early feedback (as the spec for getUserMedia is still being defined), and it sets up the infrastructure for full getUserMedia support (i.e. streaming video and audio from the camera and microphone), which Mozilla hopes to have fully supported in Android and Desktop by Firefox 17.
I want to thank all of the people who helped make this happen, especially Anant Narayanan (who is working with me as technical lead for the getUserMedia project at Mozilla), Doug Turner, Johnny Stenbeck, Fabrice Desré, and Jonas Sicking.
Jun 25, 2012 @ 16:41:05
Interesting!
Just curious, on android when the video will be streamed what encoding will be used and will it be hardware accelerated?
Some months ago I checked briefly and the hw encoder seemed unavailable but maybe I didn’t searched enough.
Jun 25, 2012 @ 17:31:44
I’m unclear if you’re referring to getUserMedia or PeerConnection in WebRTC. I believe you’re asking about WebRTC. Our plan for WebRTC is to support VP8. Mozilla is planning to support hardware acceleration (commonly referred to as “platform decoders” within Mozilla) on Android for streaming videos on the web, but that’s separate from getUserMedia and WebRTC.
Jun 25, 2012 @ 17:54:02
If I use getUserMedia from webcam I get a stream,right? And the stream is VP8 or something like RGB?
And in the video call demo is some encoding used in the network and then the plans for android are by using hw encoders? Because encoders are more complicated and limited on android than decoders it seem and I don’t know if a device can encode a video via software.
Jun 25, 2012 @ 18:05:59
getUserMedia from a webcam will return a raw bitstream (not an encoded stream). If you then want to send the bitstream you get from getUserMedia across the network to another device, that would involve WebRTC (PeerConnection to be specific). WebRTC would encode the video typically via software. WebRTC on Android is not deployed anywhere and is still being defined.
Jun 26, 2012 @ 04:48:50
Thank you!