Rtwatch: Watch videos with friends using WebRTC

I read elsewhere that WebRTC will drop audio, have you had any issues with that?

And generally, you don't need any buffering mechanisms for the clients?

Nice project!

Cool project.

> Only the current audio/video frame is being sent to the viewers, there is no way they can download/cache the videos either for future usage.

This seems misleading, though. I think I get what was meant: clients can't send a request to download from the start or a specific offset and thus "download" the original file, the server is in charge of what's being sent. However, clients can still capture the frames, save them, and replay them, obviously. And I see a button to "Seek", so...

Cool. What are the hardware requirements? I use https://github.com/calzoneman/sync with mp4 files served by nginx and it works great for 15-20 people watching on a cheap 0.5GB ram 1 vcpu vps.

I read elsewhere that WebRTC will drop audio, have you had any issues with that?

And generally, you don't need any buffering mechanisms for the clients?

Nice project!

That is 100% controllable! By setting Playout Delay Header[0] you can pick between 'drop everything to stay live' or buffering up to ~40 seconds!

In this project I don't set anything though.

[0] https://webrtc.googlesource.com/src/+/refs/heads/main/docs/n...

Cool. What are the hardware requirements? I use https://github.com/calzoneman/sync with mp4 files served by nginx and it works great for 15-20 people watching on a cheap 0.5GB ram 1 vcpu vps.

You run one encoder for all the viewers. CPU usage won't scale up from 1 -> 15 viewers.

I could get it lower by encoding once and then syncing to keyframes. It would make the code more complicated though. If someone asks for it/gets excited would love to do it though :)

Cool project.

> Only the current audio/video frame is being sent to the viewers, there is no way they can download/cache the videos either for future usage.

The 'Seek' is done server side. So if you go to `n` seconds it is done server side and done for everyone.

I should reword the README though. If someone is savy enough they could totally grab the video. For most users it is like a Google Meet though. If you click `Show Controls` you can pause the video that is it.

With things like Insertable Streams[0] you can totally grab the video.

[0] https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/Insertable_...

That is 100% controllable! By setting Playout Delay Header[0] you can pick between 'drop everything to stay live' or buffering up to ~40 seconds!

In this project I don't set anything though.

[0] https://webrtc.googlesource.com/src/+/refs/heads/main/docs/n...

You run one encoder for all the viewers. CPU usage won't scale up from 1 -> 15 viewers.

I could get it lower by encoding once and then syncing to keyframes. It would make the code more complicated though. If someone asks for it/gets excited would love to do it though :)

The 'Seek' is done server side. So if you go to `n` seconds it is done server side and done for everyone.

With things like Insertable Streams[0] you can totally grab the video.

[0] https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/Insertable_...

Watch videos with friends using WebRTC, let your backend do the pausing and seeking.

Using Pion WebRTC and GStreamer you can now watch videos in real-time with your friends. Watch your favorite movie perfectly synchronized with multiple viewers. If someone pauses it pauses for everyone, and no one can and no one fast forward only their video.

rtwatch is different then any other solution because all state is stored on the backend. Only the current audio/video frame is being sent to the viewers, there is no way they can download/cache the videos either for future usage.

Instructions

Docker

This requires host networking to be enabled. By default it is off on macOS at this time. By default this will work on Linux out of the box.

git clone https://github.com/pion/rtwatch.git
cd rtwatch
docker build . -t rtcwatch
docker run --net=host -it rtcwatch

Install GStreamer

Debian/Ubuntu

sudo apt-get install libgstreamer1.0-dev libgstreamer-plugins-base1.0-dev gstreamer1.0-plugins-good gstreamer1.0-plugins-bad gstreamer1.0-plugins-ugly

Windows MinGW64/MSYS2

pacman -S mingw-w64-x86_64-gstreamer mingw-w64-x86_64-gst-libav mingw-w64-x86_64-gst-plugins-good mingw-w64-x86_64-gst-plugins-bad mingw-w64-x86_64-gst-plugins-ugly

Error Handling

pkg-config --cflags -- gstreamer-1.0 gstreamer-app-1.0 pkg-config: exec: "pkg-config": executable file not found in %PATH%

After gstreamer installation,SET the PATH variable to C:/{path to gstreamer}/bin

Sorry, unimplemented: 64 bit mode not compiled in

RUN $ g++ -v

CHECK Target- x86_64-w64-mingw32(Required).

if not Download using this

macOS

brew install gst-plugins-good pkg-config gst-plugins-bad gst-plugins-ugly
export PKG_CONFIG_PATH="/usr/local/opt/libffi/lib/pkgconfig"

Download and build rtwatch

git clone https://github.com/pion/rtwatch.git
cd rtwatch
go build .

Play your video

./rtwatch -container-path=/home/sean/video.mp4
> Video file '/home/sean/video.mp4' is now available on ':8080', have fun!

rtwatch uses uridecodebin so you can launch it with a URI.

./rtwatch -container-path='https://ia800207.us.archive.org/15/items/BigBuckBunny_124/Content/big_buck_bunny_720p_surround.mp4'

Watch your video with friends!

Open http://localhost:8080 and hit play. Open it in multiple tabs so you can see how it syncs between multiple viewers.

You also have the option to Seek/Play/Pause! Press those buttons and watch the video state change for every viewer at the same time.

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