It’s now possible to use WebRTC – PeerConnection and MediaStream – in Internet Explorer with Chrome Frame.
Best of all, getUserMedia no longer requires a flag to work with the Chrome stable channel – so, if Chrome Frame is installed, getUserMedia just works!
I’ve recorded a screencast that shows how to install Chrome Frame and configure Chrome in order to use WebRTC in Internet Explorer:
First, an explanation of how Chrome Frame works.
Google Chrome Frame is an open source plug-in that seamlessly brings Google Chrome’s open web technologies and speedy JavaScript engine to Internet Explorer 6, 7, 8, or 9.
When web developers add the Chrome Frame meta element to their web page, Internet Explorer will use Chrome Frame to render the page.
To try out WebRTC with Chrome Frame today, you will need to use Chrome’s Dev Channel. In the future, the WebRTC APIs will be available in both Chrome and Chrome Frame’s stable channels, without requiring any flags or other user intervention.
5. To enable PeerConnection, you need to set a flag by using regedit to create the following entry in your registry (as ever, be careful when using regedit!):
Just to reiterate: the WebRTC APIs will be ‘flagless’ in future versions of Chrome and won’t need this kind of intervention.
6. Re-start Internet Explorer.
One tip: you need 32-bit Internet Explorer to use Chrome Frame. It’s normal to have 32-bit Internet Explorer, even for 64-bit Windows, but you may want to check. Just look in All Programs for the version named Internet Explorer!
Once you’ve set up Chrome Frame in Internet Explorer, try out the getUserMedia demo at simpl.info/getusermedia or the WebRTC video chat application at apprtc.appspot.com.
Pavel Feldman taking feature requests live from the audience
The Google I/O session I did with Chrome Dev Tools tech lead Pavel Feldman is now on YouTube.
Lots of new features to help you develop and debug on mobile and desktop: frame mode, the Sources panel, the new timeline, Source Maps, Web Worker debugging – and much more.
It’s a fun session, especially when Pavel shows how he uses the Dev Tools to build the Dev Tools…
If you haven’t had a look at the HTML5 track element — check it out my tutorial on HTML5 Rocks.
The track element provides a simple, standardised way to add subtitles, captions, screen reader descriptions and chapters to video and audio.
Tracks can also be used for other kinds of timed metadata. The source data for each track element is a text file made up of a list of timed cues, and cues can include data in formats such as JSON or CSV. This can enable DOM manipulation and other behaviour synchronised with media playback — as well as deep linking and media navigation via text search.
