AVChat Software Product Blog

Based on our customers suggestions we decided to improve the Drupal 6 Module for AVChat 3 . We reorganized it, we changed the way it works, and most important we added some cool new features:

• User profiles can now be accessed directly from the chat.
• The users list now shows the profile pictures (works only if “User Settings->Picture Support” is enabled from Administer)
• Settings for each user role. If one user is assigned to more user roles, then the module will take the best value (Example: A user is assigned to two roles: authenticated and gold member. Free Video Time for “authenticated” role is 1 hour and for “gold members” role is 2 hours. The module will allow the user to have 2 hours of Free Video Time)
• The possibility to choose in “Administer” between two modes of displaying the chat: Popup Window or Embedded in a web site page.
• New permissions added for users who have access to “Flash Video Chat Admin Area”.
• Clean Url friendly

What’s changed:

• Less cookies (no more than 3)
• It can be installed in /modules/ folder directly (it can still be installed in /sites/all/modules/)
• No more paths incompatibility: the paths to the swfs are now relative to $base_url
• Updated permissions page

All these goodies are available in the Drupal 6 Module from our latest build (603).

To get the new Drupal 6 module download it again from your client download page. The link should be in your delivery email.

New features:

• Wowza Media Server compatibility (more on that in a later post).
• We switched to the AS3 You Tube API, which means you can now see more than 1 video in the chat. The You Tube controls had to change tough to something simpler! .
• The color of the Top Status Bar is now the same with the color of the windows.
• The user’s avatar is now shown in the Top Status Bar and avatars now have rounded corners. The radius is controlled via style.css (cornerradius property from the windows class):
• Avatars now keep their aspect ratio.
• Admins now have the ability to close rooms ( users can not join closed rooms ):
  
• The Rooms List now shows separate column for # of users in the room, the description (when available) is shown in parenthesis.
• Major modifications to the AVChat 3 Module for Drupal 6 (more on that in a later post).
• Added a red glow around the tab containing the last received message.
• Added check box to disable auto scrolling ( this will allow proper viewing of pictures and videos in crowded rooms):
  
• Revised upload system:
  • editable filetype filters for security,useful variables are now sent to upload.xxx via GET (file size, file name, etc…)
  • upload system is now independent of the default uploadedFiles folder
  • you can modify upload.php to put the files anywhere on your web server).
• The admin interface (admin.swf) can now be fully limited to only the features of the user interface.
• Changed the color for the following text to red: USER requests permission to view your Webcam
• You can now control the width and height of the preview area for images (imagePreviewAreaWidthAndHeight in avc_settings.xxx)
• You can now translate the Loading Settings… message via the lstext flash var.
• Moved the Who Is Typing text box to the top so that it will not cover most recent messages
• added DOS protection to writeuserlist.xxx
• added functionality to make AVChat 3 work with a license key added to settings.asc

Bug fixes:

• several issues regarding the Community Builder integration inside the Joomla 1.5 Component
• added more missing texts to the language file
• issue with maxStreams limitation not working properly when autoStartOthersWebcams was on
• room names and text messages are now properly trimmed before they are created/sent.
• issues with rounded corners not scaling properly
• issue with the rooms-I-am-in counter not increasing when you were automatically dropped in a room

How to get the new AVChat 3 release

You can obtain the latest AVChat 3 build by downloading the software again ( using the download link from the delivery/trial email) and:

• doing a clean install
  OR
• overwrite all the old files including the FMIS/Red5 server side files and the translation files

Several intermediate builds were silently posted since the last major one so some of you already benefit from some of the above features.  We have some cool new features in development, hopefully we will get a new build out with some of them in the following weeks.

The login screen in AVChat 3 shows up to ask the user for its username and gender. However if you provide these info’s via avc_settings.php or avc_settings.asp the login is not needed anymore so it will be skipped!

So this is what you need to do in order to auto login users:

• set the value of $config['username'] to something (like the username of the person logged in the website)
• change the value of $config['gender'] to male, female or couple
• set $config['changegender']=0; so the user will not be given the chance to change its gender
• set $config['changeuser']=0; so the user will not be given the chance to change its username

You can also use $config['disableGenderSelection'] to disable the gender selection altogether and $config['coupleGenderEnabled'] to disable the couple gender.

As we promised, the  AVChat 3 video chat module for phpFox 2 is ready. Besides compatibility with phpFox 2, this module is more powerful, easier to install and easier to use than the one we had for 1.6 .

Features in the phpFox 2 module:

• automatic user name, gender and profile picture integration
• independent permissions control for each user group (in admin control panel)
• user profiles integration
• automatic integration with the user and admin menus
• it installs as any other phpFox 2 module
• compatible with SEO friendly URL’s in phpFox

The price for the video chat module for phpFox 2 is $49 (includes the video chat module for phpFox 1.6 too) and its available when you buy AVChat 3.

To buy the AVChat 3 Video Chat Module for your phpFox 2 website go to the purchase page and select a AVChat 3 license + the phpFox module.

For more details and screenshots visit the AVChat 3 Video Chat Module for phpFox 2.0 page.

2009 has been a great year for us, we’ve learned a lot and we’ve made big progress as a company and we feel 2010 is going to be even better. Everybody is back now from their NYE vacation (support should be again up to speed) and we’re deciding on directions to follow in 2010 with our business and products. Here are some of them:

AVChat Instant Messenger is a new product we’re working on. We have a lot of great ideas for it, hopefully we will have something to show in March.

Each product will have it’s own website. We’ve already started doing that with HDFVR and soon the Flash Audio Recorder will also be moved to its own website. AVChat 3 will follow. This will allow us to provide more accurate and on topic  info on each product and also independently measure the interest for each product.

We’re going to offer better support trough a new forum and more support articles. Many of the supports requests we get are answered with information that would be useful for everyone, not just the person asking for support so we’re going to build a forum (where our team can answer questions) and encourage everyone to post their questions there. Personalized support by email will still be available.

We’re going to support the Wowza media server across all our products. HDFVR was our first product that worked on the Wowza media server. Wowza versions of our Flash Audio Recorder and AVChat 3 are ready we just need to launch them!

AVChat 3 updates. We have a few great features we want to add in the rooms management and users list department. There is also a long list of requested features we’re going to go trough. Support for the new YouTube AS3 API should be available soon, this will mean people will be able to post more than 1 YT video in the video chat.

Better and more  integrations. The AVChat 3 Module for phpFox 2 is almost ready (should be online in a few days), vBulletin 4 was just released and Joomla 1.6 is just around the corner. Expect many improvements in the integrations department and maybe some integrations for our other products like the HD Flash Video Recorder.

More blogging. Time allowing it we’re going to post more articles, web cam reviews, guides etc… .Good useful content on this blog is rather scarce (well, except for the tutorials/documentation articles) so we’re going to improve that.

This should keep us busy for the next 6 months. We’re having even bigger plans for the second half of the year! If you have any other ideas you can always drop us a line at contact@avchat.net, feedback is always welcomed here !

HDFVR embedded in a HTML page

Today we’ve rolled out the second build of our HD Flash Video Recorder. We have fixed the issues that were discovered by our first clients and also added some new features.

New features:

• added tool tips on buttons
• updated all video quality profiles to use 30fps by default
• added minimum recording duration setting
• added setting to enable/disable the snapshot taking feature (snapshotEnable in avc_settings.xxx, enabled by default)
• added setting to enable/disable the automatic deletion of UNSAVED flv’s (deleteUnsavedFlv in avc_settings.xxx, disabled by default)
• added option to add the userId to the file name (useUserId in avc_settings.xxx, false by default)
• added min:sec estimation of the time remaining until the entire video data streams to the media server
• added 2 new JS hooks to the API: onSaveJpgOk() and onSaveJpgFailed()

Fixed issues:

• when the automatic snapshot was taken the video recorder would freeze for half a second, this pause was also present in the resulting .flv files.
• the record button would sometimes start as disabled
• lots of other smaller fixes

We are launching today a new application, the HD Flash Video Recorder:

HDFVR allows you to record up to 720p HD video directly on your website from your users.

Some of the features:

• Record video up to 1280×720px @ 30fps (720p HD).
• Java Script and PHP/ASP API for seamless integration with your recording procedure.
• Design flexibility: you can change the colors and size to better fit your website.
• Works with all media servers: FMIS , Red5 and Wowza (our first Wowza compatible product).
• Takes jpeg snapshots automatically.

You can read all about the cool features here: http://hdfvr.com/features .

Demo

You can start the demo from the HDFVR home page:  http://hdfvr.com .

Pricing:

• $195 for the SD version (records video of up to 640×480 resolution)
• $245 for the HD version (records video of up to 1280×720 resolution)

You can purchase the HDFVR right now from http://hdfvr.com/buy-now .

Upgrades for previous customers

All our previous customers who have bought the video recorder will get a free upgrade to the SD version of our  HD Flash Video Recorder, just drop us an email at contact@avchat.net .

30 day trial

To get the trial email support@avchat.net with the domain on which you want to test the new recorder.

Future Plans

We hope you like the new video recorder. Some of the features (like the snapashot taking functionality) have been requested by our customers for a long time and we are happy to finally deliver them.

We’ve also tried to take the video recorder to the next step by allowing HD video to be recorded trough it. We’ve successfully recorded 720p video @ 30 fps using the Microsoft LifeCam Cinema HD, but more on that in a future post!

As of today this new app will replace our existing video recorder app.

The plans are now to extend the JS API even further, support for the new Speex audio codec introduced in Flash Player recently and improve the overall design/usability/experience of the app.

This is also our first product to be hosted on a new website/domain. In the following months we will move all our apps to their own websites. This will mean the existing and potential customer will get better, more customized information (requirements, FAQ’s , support info, purchase and refunds info, pricing,  source code availability) about the specific app.

Hardware accelerated playback of h.264 content in Flash Player 10.1 beta actually works!

Usually when watching any HD video on the Vimeo HD Channel my CPU would  spike to about 40-50% usage. But now, after installing Flash Player 10.1 beta on my laptop, the playback process is handled by my GPU thus leaving the CPU to attend to other tasks.

CPU usage with Flash Player 10.1 beta has dropped to about 10-20% (from 40-50%)!

For now hardware accelerated playback is only available on the Windows version of Flash Player 10.1 beta and only for h.264 video content, but it’s a great step in the right direction.

Changes:

• added build number visible on right click
• the recording now starts when the user clicks [Accept] in the dialog box asking for permission to access the mic. Previously the recording would start when the user pressed the [Record] button but because of the need to accept access to the mic recording ended up  having empty space at the beginning
• added a new variable recorderId (that can be passed via flash vars ) which is passed back with every JS call. This allows you to use 2 or more audio recorders on the same HTML page. When you get a JS call now you know which of the 2 or more audio players issued the call!
• added specific server side files for Red5 0.7 and 0.8

How to get it:

• just download the software again using the link you got in the email from contact@avchat.net when purchasing it!

More info about the Flash Audio Recorder is available on the flash audio recorder area on our website.

About bandwidth usage

The bandwidth usage/month depends on many factors and can never be guessed without several days of actual running the video chat software on your website:

• number of people online watching cams and how much time they spend watching
• number of people online broadcasting cams and how much time they spend broadcasting
• how many cams a user can see at once
• audio/video quality (128,256,512kbits/s etc…)

For example a user broadcasting its webcam for 30 minutes at 256kbits/s will use  57Mbytes of bandwdith (256kbits/s * 60 seconds * 30 minutes=57Mbytes).

Another user viewing the first one for 30 minutes will use the same amount: 57Mbytes. Total: 114Mbytes for a 30 minute 1 to 1 video chat session.

Reducing bandwidth usage

AVChat 3 offers several ways to reduce the monthly bandwidth used on the media server:

• the automatic bandwidth reduction feature which is on by default
• you can lower the audio/video quality for the streams so that they use less bandwidth
• you can limit the amount of time/day users can view web cams
• you can limit the amount of web cams users can view at once (4 by default)