The growth of WebRTC as a concept is bringing with it an increasingly large variety of new products and services. Some old products also get a bit of revamping to better take advantage of the changing landscape, and OpenTok from TokBox is no exception. A major new addition to OpenTok, released earlier today, brings with it fresh cloud infrastructure and a variety of extra features.
The new addition to OpenTok, the Mantis media distribution framework, allows for a number of exciting new features to be put into play as far as WebRTC client capability goes. With Mantis in place, users will be able to get access to not only multi-party video calling with high-quality video, but also improvements in both cross-browser functionality, working with Internet Explorer, Chrome and Firefox, and cross-device capability as well, allowing iOS native apps and Chrome on Android to get into the fray.
What's more, adding Mantis allows for a new level of SIP interoperability to take place, with the ability to get in on a WebRTC video session with a cell phone, or even a landline phone, as well as a reduction in the amount of bandwidth required to make the necessary uploads, sending one WebRTC stream to several different endpoints.
That's a lot of benefit, and it all comes in thanks to Mantis, which is a proprietary offering of TokBox itself that can intelligently route and even alter video streams to make the best use of bandwidth available, making for scalability in a WebRTC platform. Normally, WebRTC would limit the number of participants that can be involved in a video call--due mostly to issues of bandwidth--but with Mantis, which can act as a kind of central switching station in the cloud for WebRTC streams, the numbers of users can go up without needing extra bandwidth to operate. Perhaps best of all, those services that already use OpenTok will be able to get in on the new functionality without updates or changing established code, making the process seamless.
TokBox's CEO, Ian Small, offered some remarks describing the benefits of adding Mantis to the larger WebRTC picture: "The WebRTC standard has so many virtues, but at the same time is still far from delivering the end-to-end capability that real-world apps need. For the benefit of anyone who believes in the value of live face-to-face communications, OpenTok evolves WebRTC into a legitimate commercial platform."
Indeed, allowing a WebRTC platform to scale upward improves its value substantially. There's a lot of value in products like that; some Citrix products, by way of comparison, can accommodate 5,000 users at a time. Being able to put WebRTC capability into the hands of large groups only improves its potential value from the already substantial value it was offering.
The continuing saga of WebRTC is likely to produce more exciting advances the farther along it goes, which in turn will mean more products, more services, and more refinements made to current offerings to yield completely new functionality. Hear more about all that’s happening in this space at the upcoming WebRTC Conference and Expo. TokBox’s CEO Ian Small will deliver a keynote presentation on WebRTC and mobile devices.
Edited by
Stefania Viscusi
