Configure video in ConfBridge without WebRTC

Asterisk Asterisk Support
1

Hello everyone,

I am currently working on my end-of-year project with Asterisk and am encountering a problem regarding video in conferences.

My endpoints can already exchange audio/video without problem. However, I want to allow video to be established within a conference using ConfBridge. I theoretically configured my ConfBridge to accept video, and enabled the VP8 and H264 codecs. When entering the conference and activating the video, the phone sends the video and the server seems to process the data correctly (verification with rtp set debug on).

I’m testing with Linphone, but I don’t want to use WebRTC.

Is there a solution for this, or do I have to use WebRTC?

Thank you for your feedback!

2

What exactly are you expecting from video conferencing in the scenario?

3

I hope all participants can share their video during the conference. If I understood correctly, the follow_talker parameter allows you to show only the video of the person speaking, or with sfu which could offer a mosaic view if I understood correctly, similar to what you see on a Teams call, with the videos of all the participants

4

There is no video mixing in Asterisk. The “sfu” does not show a mosaic inherently, it sends all video streams to everyone and it is up to them to display them accordingly.

5

Ok, thanks for the explanation, so the best option would be to follow the speaker. I also tried the ‘follow talker’ option, but I still don’t receive any packets. So the problem could be with Linphone?

6

I haven’t used that video support in a long long time, so I don’t know. Traditional video like that is generally low usage.

7

So you think I should turn to webrtc?

8

That has been used more, and with sfu can do the mosaic view.

9

Ok thank you for taking the time to answer me, have a nice day

10

On Thursday 13 February 2025 at 17:14:02, Coyote1609 via Asterisk Community
wrote:

So you think I should turn to webrtc?

Have you considered that Asterisk might not be the best tool for this job?

Antony.

–
If you ask a Yorkshireman whether he knows the German word for “egg”,
don’t be surprised if he just smiles and says “Aye”.

11

So you think I should turn to webrtc?

There are not many desktop client’s that will support multiple video streams.

If you want to see how the nuts and bolts of how video streams work in WebRTC, there is this project that works with the Asterisk Conference out the box: GitHub - InnovateAsterisk/Browser-Phone: A fully featured browser based WebRTC SIP phone for Asterisk

You just have to setup a buddy as an extension, and dial into the conference (probably with a feature code or some thing).

12

End of term projects often have implementation constraints that don’t allow the best tool for the job. (Actually marketing departments often do the same.)