imclab/hackview

webRTC based multi-person video chat with a collaborative editor.

HackView - Y! HackU IIT-Delhi 2012 Winning Entry

Our winning entry for Y! HackU involves a multi-person video chat using webRTC to create a Peer-To-Peer video hangout, which works faster than any other video chat provider. It is ideal for people chatting on the same network (such as corporate & university networks).

#References:

##Technologies Used

• WebRTC
• Collaborative Editing
• Websockets for fast server-client communication
• node.js for powering the backend
• expressJS for fast, easy webserver in node
• Responsive Design

##Libraries Used

• WebRTC.io for supporting webRTC protocol
• ShareJS

##Similar Stuff

• Google Hangouts
• Meetings.io (Uses flash)

#Notes

Since this was developed over a 24 hour hackathon, the code is messy in places. The design is responsive, and should work on most devices (including mobile/tablets). It should degrade to a doc editor + chat for devices without webRTC support (which is just Chrome>=21, Firefox>=17, Opera>=12 at present). The following is the feature set we require for various features:

1. Document Editor: Should work everywhere as it is powered by shareJS which uses BrowserChannel
2. Video Chat: Should work on devices with getUserMedia support
3. Normal Text Chat: It is powered by webRTC.socket, which uses WebSockets internally. I could not get BrowserChannel to work in a separate channel (from shareJS), but that was my first choice. I tried to shift to socket.io, but it caused issues by conflicting with webRTC.socket, so I just used that. This means chat only works in browsers with websocket support