3 ms·

Anyone know how Google Talk's video chat works compared to Apple's FaceTime? Google: Jingle (created at Google), an extension of Jabber/XMPP for signaling, RTP

by car 16y ago

Anyone know how Google Talk's video chat works compared to Apple's FaceTime? Google: Jingle (created at Google), an extension of Jabber/XMPP for signaling, RTP for media, H.264 video, GIPS (acquired by Google) audio Apple: SIP/STUN/TURN/BuzzwordBingo for signaling/NAT traversal, RTP for media, H.264 video, AAC audio Is there a reason everyone can't agree on a standard? a) Google: not-invented-here-syndrome b) Apple: massive lock-in c) Skype: see Apple

nl 16y ago
>Is there a reason everyone can't agree on a standard? a) Google: not-invented-here-syndrome To be fair, I'm not aware of any standard that existed when Google first released Google Talk video/voice. It is pretty strongly standards-based, though, and uses appropriate extension points in standard protocols (Jingle on XMPP).
- car 16y ago
  Bit of a history here, but SIP had been around for a couple of years when Google Talk was released. I spoke to Chris Sacca, who was part of the Google Talk team (if I'm not mistaken) at Startup School a couple of years ago, and he told me that the 'SIP gateways' would be coming online shortly. This must have been in 06/07'. If memory serves well, the reasons why Google didn't go with SIP at the time had to do with federation and trust between different SIP domains. So it was mostly security and anti-SPAM related. They were meaning to do the right thing - i.e. being open - but found that SIP could not serve their needs.
est 16y ago
> RTP for media, H.264 video, GIPS (acquired by Google) audio Google use Speex in Jingle now.
DarkShikari 16y ago
Part of the problem is that no good standard exists. RTP is a complete unusable disaster: it's incredibly overcomplicated and almost no system supports more than an arbitrary and incompatible subset of the spec, so almost all RTP systems end up being incompatible with everything else.
- MichaelGG 16y ago
  It didn't help that the IETF refused to admit NATs exist, and every other home router added poor "fixup" code that usually just breaks things even more. (Although, that's more on the SIP side.)
lloeki 16y ago
While Skype is indeed a massive lock-in because it's proprietary end to end I wouldn't say FaceTime is. Given how 99% of it is standard, I expect "anyone" with enough intent could reverse engineer the glue. It has been done for AirTunes/AirPlay already. I'd say it's in the same state as was GTalk when it started and Jingle was not published at the time.
- car 16y ago
  Agreed, I was quite happy to see Apple use the most current IETF standards, alas with some secret sauce (the missing 1%). However, the fact that FaceTime only works through Apple's SIP and NAT traversal infrastructure (assumed, since they seem to use TURN) effectively makes them the owners of all FaceTime users identity. We will have to see how much they open things up. My guess would be that they allow others to make FaceTime clients, but keep control of the server side. In theory, Apple could make an end-run around the telcos, since they will eventually have a huge directory of phone numbers and email addresses for all FaceTime users. At that point the carriers truly become a dumb pipe. Maybe that is Apple's plan, after all.
pthatcherg 16y ago
Google also uses ICE-UDP and STUN, although the implementation was done before ICE-UDP was standardized, so it doesn't quite follow the standard yet. Also, Google speaks many audio codecs, including speex. ISAC (the codec from GIPS) is just the default.

by car 16y ago

nl 16y ago

>Is there a reason everyone can't agree on a standard? a) Google: not-invented-here-syndrome To be fair, I'm not aware of any standard that existed when Google first released Google Talk video/voice. It is pretty strongly standards-based, though, and uses appropriate extension points in standard protocols (Jingle on XMPP).

car 16y ago
Bit of a history here, but SIP had been around for a couple of years when Google Talk was released. I spoke to Chris Sacca, who was part of the Google Talk team (if I'm not mistaken) at Startup School a couple of years ago, and he told me that the 'SIP gateways' would be coming online shortly. This must have been in 06/07'. If memory serves well, the reasons why Google didn't go with SIP at the time had to do with federation and trust between different SIP domains. So it was mostly security and anti-SPAM related. They were meaning to do the right thing - i.e. being open - but found that SIP could not serve their needs.

est 16y ago

> RTP for media, H.264 video, GIPS (acquired by Google) audio Google use Speex in Jingle now.

DarkShikari 16y ago

Part of the problem is that no good standard exists. RTP is a complete unusable disaster: it's incredibly overcomplicated and almost no system supports more than an arbitrary and incompatible subset of the spec, so almost all RTP systems end up being incompatible with everything else.

MichaelGG 16y ago
It didn't help that the IETF refused to admit NATs exist, and every other home router added poor "fixup" code that usually just breaks things even more. (Although, that's more on the SIP side.)

lloeki 16y ago

While Skype is indeed a massive lock-in because it's proprietary end to end I wouldn't say FaceTime is. Given how 99% of it is standard, I expect "anyone" with enough intent could reverse engineer the glue. It has been done for AirTunes/AirPlay already. I'd say it's in the same state as was GTalk when it started and Jingle was not published at the time.

car 16y ago
Agreed, I was quite happy to see Apple use the most current IETF standards, alas with some secret sauce (the missing 1%). However, the fact that FaceTime only works through Apple's SIP and NAT traversal infrastructure (assumed, since they seem to use TURN) effectively makes them the owners of all FaceTime users identity. We will have to see how much they open things up. My guess would be that they allow others to make FaceTime clients, but keep control of the server side. In theory, Apple could make an end-run around the telcos, since they will eventually have a huge directory of phone numbers and email addresses for all FaceTime users. At that point the carriers truly become a dumb pipe. Maybe that is Apple's plan, after all.

pthatcherg 16y ago

Google also uses ICE-UDP and STUN, although the implementation was done before ICE-UDP was standardized, so it doesn't quite follow the standard yet. Also, Google speaks many audio codecs, including speex. ISAC (the codec from GIPS) is just the default.