AVChat Build 2330 introduces H.264 support and more

This build is primarily focused on integrating AVChat with new technologies and adapting it to be compatible with even more mediums.

We started off working on making AVChat compatible with the latest version of Red5 1.0.1. We got it working but we still have some important issues we have to nail down before we can release a stablem version for Red 5 1.0.1 . We also want to do some load tests and see if there is any difference between 0.8 and 1.0.1 in regards to performance. Until we get all that sorted out  AVChat will continue to work on Red5 0.8 and Red5 1.0 RC1.

We also continued the development of the Wowza server-side modifications that are necessary for the mobile client to work on it, but Wowza handles client connections differently than FMS/AMS and Red5, so we sort of hit a wall, and realizing  it may take too much time to find a good solution we decided to focus on other great new features that we were confident we could finish in time for this new build.

So without any further ado,

Here are the new features introduced in this build:

1. H.264 video encoding for all media servers. H.264 uses less bandwidth than the old Sorenson Spark but more CPU power. To use it just change the <vcodec> tag value in the audio-video profile .XML. The xml files have also been updated with more info on the topic. Flash player 11.1 and above is now required to run AVChat in the browser. We also got the recording feature working with the new codec by storing in MP4 files. More details on recording can be found in the dedicated article for the recording feature which has been updated.
2. Allowing connections by protocol type in AMS for the 2 clients (Flash and HTML respectively). This is a security feature that allows you to limit connections from the Flash client only through a  single trusted protocol like RTMPE. RTMP is not considered as secure because there are many implementations other than Flash Player. The setting that controls this is named  application.allowedProtocol and can be found in settings.asc along with the documentation. This feature is only available on AMS at this moment as it is the only media server with mobile client support that can have RTMPE protocol enabled. Rtmpe was added in FMS 3.0.Flash Media Server 3.0.3 and 3.5.1 introduced the Application.xml <DisallowedProtocols> tag to allow administrators to restrict application access by connection protocols but this tag applied both to mobile connections and Flash connections so we had to implement our own setting.
3. Room creators can now be their moderators. This feature uses the new setting clientUniqueIdentifier from avc_settings.xml to identify the creators of the room. This setting can hold any value that can identify a user properly (IP, a uniquely generated token, userId or siteId passed from the site on which AVChat is integrated with). AVChat standalone comes with the default identification by a user’s IP. The moderator feature can also be disabled using the new setting enableModeratorForRooms.Moderators have the following options from a user’s side menu:
   1. A moderator can kick  a user.
   2. A moderator can silence a user for the time expressed by the silenceDuration setting. Further options will be added depending on user feedback after the first iteration of  this feature.
4. Here is a how user’s side menu looks from the perspective of a moderator:
   
5. Banning for mobile clients. The banning for mobile clients will have to be done explicitly using the ban panel, as side menus for mobile users are disabled.
6. Users connecting from the mobile version now have avatars  as well
7. Better documentation and  formatting for the settings files for all the media servers.
8. New error message when a username is not allowed that appears below the username input in the login screen:
   

Here is the list with the fixed issues:

On the Flash client:

1. Emote icons have been fixed. Now all combinations of emote icons codes ( (smile),  :D, :-D, etc)  will display the emote icons correctly
2. Flashing room or PM tab now correctly restore to the non-flashing state when clicked.
3. All the texts in the camera side-menu now properly scale the side-menu so that they no longer get cut.
4. The chat history window now scrolls automatically to the bottom whenever new content is loaded.
5. Fixed issue with the user icons now displaying correctly when a user has no mic/cam icon and has their stream private.
6. The gender names from the login screen now use the fontMainLabels from style.xml for styling.
7. The “X users are online” text no longer overlaps with the login screen if there is only one row of genders.
8. Uploaded images now scale accordingly, preserving ratios.
9. Fixed issue with the auto login of the client now working correctly with the following setup in avc_settings changegender=0, changeuser=0, username was set and gender was empty.
10. The setting showLoginError now has the highest priority on how the login screen is displayed.

On the Mobile client:

1. Register and Login buttons now redirect accordingly.
2. If a mobile device enters stand-by the client gets disconnected and the mobile client now auto redirects to the rooms list upon reactivating the mobile device.
3. Parenthesis no longer show up in the users list when IP’s are not shown.

How to download and upgrade:

You can download this new build of AVChat from your client area. As a trial user you do not yet have access to this build.

Steps to upgrade an old installation:

1. overwrite all old client side files (You can keep your old language files. The missing phrases will default to English until you add them to your existing language XML file.)
2. overwrite the media server files and restart the media server

If you have issues with it after upgrading make sure you clear your browser’s cache. If you still have issues after doing that send us an email at support@avchathq.com.

If you want us to upgrade your AVChat installation for you you can purchase our additional AVChat Installation Service from here: http://avchat.net/buy-now#services .  Once you make the purchase just email us at contact@avchathq.com.