How to control bandwidth in WebRTC video call?

Question

I am trying to develop a Video Calling/Conferencing application using WebRTC and node.js. Right now there is no facility to control bandwidth during during video call. Is there any way to control/reduce bandwidth. (like I want make whole my web application to work on 150 kbps while video conferencing).

Any suggestions are highly appreciated. Thanks in advance.

Answer 1

Not sure if this helps, but you can limit the video resolution from getUserMedia with constraints: see demo at simpl.info/getusermedia/constraints/.

Answer 2

You should also be able to use bandwidth constraints on the stream (see this demo), but it doesn't appear to be working, even in the latest canary (29.0.1529.3).

There's some discussion of the SDP-based approach on the discuss-webrtc mailing list, which links to WebRTC bug 1846.

Answer 3

Try this demo. You can inject bandwidth attributes (b=AS) in the session descriptions:

audioBandwidth = 50;
videoBandwidth = 256;
function setBandwidth(sdp) {
    sdp = sdp.replace(/a=mid:audio\r\n/g, 'a=mid:audio\r\nb=AS:' + audioBandwidth + '\r\n');
    sdp = sdp.replace(/a=mid:video\r\n/g, 'a=mid:video\r\nb=AS:' + videoBandwidth + '\r\n');
    return sdp;
}


// ----------------------------------------------------------

peer.createOffer(function (sessionDescription) {
        sessionDescription.sdp = setBandwidth(sessionDescription.sdp);
        peer.setLocalDescription(sessionDescription);
    }, null, constraints);

peer.createAnswer(function (sessionDescription) {
        sessionDescription.sdp = setBandwidth(sessionDescription.sdp);
        peer.setLocalDescription(sessionDescription);
    }, null, constraints);

b=AS is already present in sdp for data m-line; its default value is 50.

Updated at Sept 23, 2015

Here is a library that provides full control over both audio/video tracks' bitrates:

// here is how to use it
var bandwidth = {
    screen: 300, // 300kbits minimum
    audio: 50,   // 50kbits  minimum
    video: 256   // 256kbits (both min-max)
};
var isScreenSharing = false;

sdp = BandwidthHandler.setApplicationSpecificBandwidth(sdp, bandwidth, isScreenSharing);
sdp = BandwidthHandler.setVideoBitrates(sdp, {
    min: bandwidth.video,
    max: bandwidth.video
});
sdp = BandwidthHandler.setOpusAttributes(sdp);

Here is the library code. Its quite big but it works!

// BandwidthHandler.js

var BandwidthHandler = (function() {
    function setBAS(sdp, bandwidth, isScreen) {
        if (!!navigator.mozGetUserMedia || !bandwidth) {
            return sdp;
        }

        if (isScreen) {
            if (!bandwidth.screen) {
                console.warn('It seems that you are not using bandwidth for screen. Screen sharing is expected to fail.');
            } else if (bandwidth.screen < 300) {
                console.warn('It seems that you are using wrong bandwidth value for screen. Screen sharing is expected to fail.');
            }
        }

        // if screen; must use at least 300kbs
        if (bandwidth.screen && isScreen) {
            sdp = sdp.replace(/b=AS([^\r\n]+\r\n)/g, '');
            sdp = sdp.replace(/a=mid:video\r\n/g, 'a=mid:video\r\nb=AS:' + bandwidth.screen + '\r\n');
        }

        // remove existing bandwidth lines
        if (bandwidth.audio || bandwidth.video || bandwidth.data) {
            sdp = sdp.replace(/b=AS([^\r\n]+\r\n)/g, '');
        }

        if (bandwidth.audio) {
            sdp = sdp.replace(/a=mid:audio\r\n/g, 'a=mid:audio\r\nb=AS:' + bandwidth.audio + '\r\n');
        }

        if (bandwidth.video) {
            sdp = sdp.replace(/a=mid:video\r\n/g, 'a=mid:video\r\nb=AS:' + (isScreen ? bandwidth.screen : bandwidth.video) + '\r\n');
        }

        return sdp;
    }

    // Find the line in sdpLines that starts with |prefix|, and, if specified,
    // contains |substr| (case-insensitive search).
    function findLine(sdpLines, prefix, substr) {
        return findLineInRange(sdpLines, 0, -1, prefix, substr);
    }

    // Find the line in sdpLines[startLine...endLine - 1] that starts with |prefix|
    // and, if specified, contains |substr| (case-insensitive search).
    function findLineInRange(sdpLines, startLine, endLine, prefix, substr) {
        var realEndLine = endLine !== -1 ? endLine : sdpLines.length;
        for (var i = startLine; i < realEndLine; ++i) {
            if (sdpLines[i].indexOf(prefix) === 0) {
                if (!substr ||
                    sdpLines[i].toLowerCase().indexOf(substr.toLowerCase()) !== -1) {
                    return i;
                }
            }
        }
        return null;
    }

    // Gets the codec payload type from an a=rtpmap:X line.
    function getCodecPayloadType(sdpLine) {
        var pattern = new RegExp('a=rtpmap:(\\d+) \\w+\\/\\d+');
        var result = sdpLine.match(pattern);
        return (result && result.length === 2) ? result[1] : null;
    }

    function setVideoBitrates(sdp, params) {
        params = params || {};
        var xgoogle_min_bitrate = params.min;
        var xgoogle_max_bitrate = params.max;

        var sdpLines = sdp.split('\r\n');

        // VP8
        var vp8Index = findLine(sdpLines, 'a=rtpmap', 'VP8/90000');
        var vp8Payload;
        if (vp8Index) {
            vp8Payload = getCodecPayloadType(sdpLines[vp8Index]);
        }

        if (!vp8Payload) {
            return sdp;
        }

        var rtxIndex = findLine(sdpLines, 'a=rtpmap', 'rtx/90000');
        var rtxPayload;
        if (rtxIndex) {
            rtxPayload = getCodecPayloadType(sdpLines[rtxIndex]);
        }

        if (!rtxIndex) {
            return sdp;
        }

        var rtxFmtpLineIndex = findLine(sdpLines, 'a=fmtp:' + rtxPayload.toString());
        if (rtxFmtpLineIndex !== null) {
            var appendrtxNext = '\r\n';
            appendrtxNext += 'a=fmtp:' + vp8Payload + ' x-google-min-bitrate=' + (xgoogle_min_bitrate || '228') + '; x-google-max-bitrate=' + (xgoogle_max_bitrate || '228');
            sdpLines[rtxFmtpLineIndex] = sdpLines[rtxFmtpLineIndex].concat(appendrtxNext);
            sdp = sdpLines.join('\r\n');
        }

        return sdp;
    }

    function setOpusAttributes(sdp, params) {
        params = params || {};

        var sdpLines = sdp.split('\r\n');

        // Opus
        var opusIndex = findLine(sdpLines, 'a=rtpmap', 'opus/48000');
        var opusPayload;
        if (opusIndex) {
            opusPayload = getCodecPayloadType(sdpLines[opusIndex]);
        }

        if (!opusPayload) {
            return sdp;
        }

        var opusFmtpLineIndex = findLine(sdpLines, 'a=fmtp:' + opusPayload.toString());
        if (opusFmtpLineIndex === null) {
            return sdp;
        }

        var appendOpusNext = '';
        appendOpusNext += '; stereo=' + (typeof params.stereo != 'undefined' ? params.stereo : '1');
        appendOpusNext += '; sprop-stereo=' + (typeof params['sprop-stereo'] != 'undefined' ? params['sprop-stereo'] : '1');

        if (typeof params.maxaveragebitrate != 'undefined') {
            appendOpusNext += '; maxaveragebitrate=' + (params.maxaveragebitrate || 128 * 1024 * 8);
        }

        if (typeof params.maxplaybackrate != 'undefined') {
            appendOpusNext += '; maxplaybackrate=' + (params.maxplaybackrate || 128 * 1024 * 8);
        }

        if (typeof params.cbr != 'undefined') {
            appendOpusNext += '; cbr=' + (typeof params.cbr != 'undefined' ? params.cbr : '1');
        }

        if (typeof params.useinbandfec != 'undefined') {
            appendOpusNext += '; useinbandfec=' + params.useinbandfec;
        }

        if (typeof params.usedtx != 'undefined') {
            appendOpusNext += '; usedtx=' + params.usedtx;
        }

        if (typeof params.maxptime != 'undefined') {
            appendOpusNext += '\r\na=maxptime:' + params.maxptime;
        }

        sdpLines[opusFmtpLineIndex] = sdpLines[opusFmtpLineIndex].concat(appendOpusNext);

        sdp = sdpLines.join('\r\n');
        return sdp;
    }

    return {
        setApplicationSpecificBandwidth: function(sdp, bandwidth, isScreen) {
            return setBAS(sdp, bandwidth, isScreen);
        },
        setVideoBitrates: function(sdp, params) {
            return setVideoBitrates(sdp, params);
        },
        setOpusAttributes: function(sdp, params) {
            return setOpusAttributes(sdp, params);
        }
    };
})();

Here is how to set advance opus bitrate parameters:

sdp = BandwidthHandler.setOpusAttributes(sdp, {
    'stereo': 0, // to disable stereo (to force mono audio)
    'sprop-stereo': 1,
    'maxaveragebitrate': 500 * 1024 * 8, // 500 kbits
    'maxplaybackrate': 500 * 1024 * 8, // 500 kbits
    'cbr': 0, // disable cbr
    'useinbandfec': 1, // use inband fec
    'usedtx': 1, // use dtx
    'maxptime': 3
});

Answer 4

WebRTC is for peer to peer communication, you cannot control bandwidth in video call.

In google chrome there are these properties on a video element:

webkitVideoDecodedByteCount: 0
webkitAudioDecodedByteCount: 0

These are useful to know how fast the client can decode the video. As the video plays you would keep track of the delta amount of these bytes which gives you bytes/s the client is processing the video.(SO thread)

you should use Network Information API to know bandwidth ( it is still under implementation).