Video chat and conferencing options

[seeker]

@jdaviescoates Ok. Thanks!

To add another possibility to the mix. I ran across a post on reddit asking about how to selfhost a streaming watch party. https://www.reddit.com/r/selfhosted/comments/fryxkc/advice_for_private_media_stream_rtmp/ Among the comments, a user shared they were using VLC with NDI plugin, OBS with NDI source, Docker restreamer, Restreamer Iframe, Some NGINX voodoo (many of these I am not familiar with)

A solution such as Docker Restreamer and OBS is attractive as a webinar platform as a number of the people I am trying to accommodate already use OBS for Teaching and co-learning. While I have been leaning towards Jitsi, I really like Big Blue Button and this might be a little closer to that.

Restreamer seems pretty mature with a docker image, a number of ways to implement and good documentation.
https://datarhei.github.io/restreamer/docs/guides-obs.html
https://datarhei.github.io/restreamer/docs/guides-embedding.html

[girish]

We usually use the hosted jitsi for our call but yesterday we gave a self-hosted BBB (not on Cloudron) a try. It was flawless. Now, just have to find out what it takes to get it into Cloudron.

[seeker]

@girish said in Video chat and conferencing options:

We usually use the hosted jitsi for our call but yesterday we gave a self-hosted BBB (not on Cloudron) a try. It was flawless. Now, just have to find out what it takes to get it into Cloudron.

Very cool. I am still on the fence about which one would be best. Jitsi seems to have alot going for it, but BBB seems much more robust. My sense is that BBB would require a more powerful server than Jitsi.

[yusf]

I’d be happy to try BBB as well as Jitsi, but Jitsi I can integrate in the Matrix+Riot chat solution, so that’s what I’ll aim for production-wise.

[msbt]

I'm happy to sign up for testing as well to speed things up. Jitsi seems to be more versatile when it comes to other applications that embed it, seen a few lately that use jitsi as their video option.

[girish]

Yup, we are just putting e2e in the CI now with turn support So, I can put you guys for early release. We will probably need quite a bit of testing to make sure things are reliable.

[scooke]

@girish You can add me too! I'll be trying both BBB and Jitsi again.

[NCKNE]

I‘d be available for testing as well if that helps.

[yusf]

Me too. We might as well turn the test sessions into Cloudron community chats, so that we have something to talk about.

[avatar1024]

Anyone got any experience of:

• mediasoup based conferencing app, such as multiparty-meeting (test here). It was reported on Jitsi forum that it uses VP9 and as a result as got a better quality and is more reliable on Firefox
• Medooze

And how they might compare to Jitsi / BBB / Kopano?

Thanks

[yusf]

I have to say, Kopano felt pretty slick for a 1on1 call, even on mobile devices over 3G.
I miss

• a hand-raising function for a larger group talk though.
• userless calls (though I hear this can be configured)
• pre-made user groups from LDAP user groups

[nebulon]

Just wanted to share some update on this. We've published an updated Nextcloud app package which now pre-configures Nextcloud Talk (which is btw based on spreed)

The app update will be available only for Cloudrons already on 5.1

[jdaviescoates]

@nebulon I just tested this with the new updated Nextcloud talk in Cloudron 5.1 and it worked great (I started a call on my laptop on wifi and then joined as a non-logged in guest on my mobile over 4g)

Next to actually test with a real call with multiple users...

[jdaviescoates]

I've just tested Nextcloud Talk on Cloudron 5.1 with myself logged into Nextcloud plus 3 non-Cloudron user guests and it mostly* worked great!

*(one person couldn't see/ hear another, but the rest of us could all see/ hear everyone else ).

[msbt]

@nebulon I just tried it and can't get the video of the other person.

chrome says Uncaught (in promise) DOMException: Failed to execute 'addIceCandidate' on 'RTCPeerConnection': Error processing ICE candidate

firefox InvalidStateError: Cannot add ICE candidate when there is no remote SDP

@jdaviescoates did you just install a fresh nextcloud and it worked out of the box? I tried connecting from 2 laptops on the same lan and afterwards with browser and mobile (different net), neither are connecting properly. At some point it was working after a few minutes, and only once. Any ideas what's going on there?

[jdaviescoates]

@msbt are you on Cloudron 5.1?

[msbt]

yea I set up a new machine for testing

[nebulon]

Are there any errors in the nextcloud or in the turn addon logs?

[msbt]

of course now it worked on the second attempt. but restarted both, turn and nextcloud, and now the errors appear again and no immediate connection is possible:

nextcloud log is empty, turn shows the following errors:

Apr 06 15:28:52 105: IPv4. tcp or tls connected to: mobileip:18426
Apr 06 15:28:52 105: session 001000000000000040: realm <desktopip> user <>: incoming packet message processed, error 401: Unauthorized

and this from connection attempt:
https://paste.cloudron.io/oqiqocayez.rb

[imc67]

Hi all,

after @girish and @nebulon did a extremely well job to add TURN in a short time, I'm curious who is using what for video conferencing via Cloudron (or third party)?

It seems the COVID-19 "lockdowns" or "other ways of living and working" seems to take many more months, so a solid, safe and easy videoconferencing app is very welcome.

Options/roadmaps:

1. Kopano-Meet doesn't work (for us)
2. Jitsi isn't here yet
3. BBB isn't here yet
4. Nextcloud Talk is IMHO not really one-click-easy (has anyone experience with 6+ meetings?)
5. other current apps on Cloudron?
6. other third-party video conference solutions?

I'm curious for your experiences and opinions.

Kind regards,

Marcel