Tuesday, November 11, 2008

Say hello to Gmail voice and video chat



It's here!  Today we're launching voice and video chat, right inside Gmail. We've tried to make this an easy-to-use, seamless experience, with high-quality audio and video. And we've built this product using Internet standards, such as XMPP, RTP, and the newly-standardized H.264/SVC video codec.

This product was a lot of fun to create, and it's just as much fun to use. Check it out in the product video below, and then head on over to http://mail.google.com/videochat to try it for yourself.



This is just our first version, and we have a lot more planned. We're always glad to hear feedback from users - tell us what you think by leaving a comment on this blog or sending me an email (juberti). If you really like it, feel free to say so over a video chat!

13 comments:

Peter Parnes said...

Woohoo! Congratulations Justin! :)

Anonymous said...

Looks great, thanks! Would it be possible to open source (part of) the plugin, so that porting to Linux might go faster?

Kamal said...

Awesome news!
Since Google brags about open networks, could we please get the settings on how to make this work with say ekiga on Linux ?!

Alan Keister said...

Hmmm. Seems like you have build this feature before :-)

fosk said...

That's great!

As it has being developed with XMPP/Jingle, i hope it will be compatible and working soon with Telepathy/Gabble/Empathy on Linux machines!!

Looking forward for an open and standard videochat!

Unknown said...

Justin, we have a similar product (www.octro.com) that lets do Video Calling (using Jingle/XMPP). We would have been interoperable if only your product supported H261, or ours supported H264. We have the product for Symbian S60 and Windows Mobile as well.

Would be great if we could get in touch, to discuss any possible opportunities.

Senko said...

If you're pushing open protocols, too bad you didn't go all the way and actually implement Jingle (XEP-0167) and support a somewhat more open codec.

Existing standard for voice/video in XMPP (which wasn't around when google did voice, so originally you didn't use it, but I think there was no point in NIHing the video part now, expecially the stuff with signalling two streams inside one Jingle content).

While H.264/SVC seems open, a fact is that it's still rarely used and has no free implementations (and AFAIK has NO implementations on Linux at all), so there's no chance of anyone interoperating with you.

If a more open or widely used codec (such as H.263, for example) were available as a fallback, video interop would be possible. Are there any plans to do that sort of thing?

(Disclosure: I'm a XMPP/Jingle developer working on Telepathy project)

-j- said...

Are you planning on a version for the desktop?
I often chat without a browser open, and more often open & close browser windows as I do variety of things at work.
If I have to have a browser open, I may as well go to dim dim or breeze...
thanks.

Unknown said...

Is RTP Packetization for H264/SVC a standard yet?

I see some drafts on the internet, but no RFC.

Like Google did with voice (speex codec support), support a more open video codec, and then we can be interoperable.

gmadkat said...

Congratulations!!! I am installing it now...

Thom Hastings said...

I sure would appreciate a Linux client.

test blog said...

please release a LINUX version!

-k

audio codecs said...

its really cool plugin from google team.. I Just installed it :)