Toward Real-Time Video Streaming Over WebRTC Data Channels to Support Supplementary Video Codecs and Formats in the Browser

Although the broad availability of WebRTC in browsers enables many peer-to-peer media streaming applications, its limited codec and video format support constrains its use for applications requiring wide color gamuts, deep color, HDR, and other advanced video capabilities. In this paper, we present an implementation of an alternative solution that uses WebRTC data channels to enable streaming and playback of video codecs and formats not supported by browser WebRTC implementations. By encapsulating video frames in MP4 fragments and pushing them from source to recipient via data channel, we take advantage of the Media Source Extensions available in the browser to offer broader video codec and format support. We show results of the utilization of this method, which we find to be a viable alternative to traditional WebRTC video streams for unsupported formats and advanced video capabilities, given favorable network conditions and configuration, and we evaluate its performance and caveats.