Recently Gmail Introduced Video Chat. For a platform, to support the video chat you need to install the flash activex plugin.

You can get the plugin from http://mail.google.com/videochat

But when you click on Install voice and video chat button, Some of you see the page which shows

“The installer should complete in seconds.

 

If you are having trouble with the download, click here. “ 

But some other see a auto installer page which downloads the Setup.exe file and automatically start installation and prompts you to restart the browser.

Who did this installation without any security problem or violation and we saw a different window which shows the progress bar of the installation. This happens only when , if you have google tool bar installed on your browser , or google desktop, or google gears. For those browsers if the above three is not present, the previous message gets result , and which provide the direct link of the GoogleVoiceAndVideoSetup.exe

It is http://dl.google.com/googletalk/googletalkplugin/GoogleVoiceAndVideoSetup.exe

My Chrome browser does not support automatic installation. Because it is a new guest for my OS and the google additional plugin installation happend before its arrival. So Only Download and manual installation works in that case.

 

Then what the script exectued behind is 

 

window.google.update.oneclick.install (install via click) 

and 

 

location.href =  http://dl.google.com/googletalk/googletalkplugin/GoogleVoiceAndVideoSetup.exe (install manually )

Note the first bit of script window.google , A new object for google, which is created as the result of any one of the above mentioned google services. My Chrome Browser (Since he is a new member) does not know about the window.google (he knows the default methods like window.location, window.document)

Thats allabout the installation part. 

Now About the Video Chat. Obviously it is a flash based video chat mechanism , but the difference is it uses rtcp and udp protocol for video /audio chatting. Did you check the speed of your video chat ? Amaze  rite ?

 

 

Then lets check about the video chat request.

When you request someone for a video chat, google ajax posts the following data

 

req4_jid c2143377409

req4_json            ["jc","xyz@gmail.com","c2143377409",[["192.168.1.100","3801","video_rtp","dgE9SG8VMVdQFrYo","gyB0pRw5dkoEtq21","1","udp","0","local","0"]]]

req4_type          j

req5_jid c2143377409

req5_json            ["jc","xyz@gmail.com","c2143377409",[["116.68.66.85","3784","rtcp","iqV9/3HhhqkjQ4kp","wMSi7BsiOVNtnbJR","0.9","udp","0","stun","0"]]]

req5_type          j

Here xyz@gmail.com is the person , to whom you are going to chat. It sends the video_rtp protocol parameters. To know more about rtcp and udp go to: http://www.javvin.com/protocolRTCP.html

Here 192.168.1.100 is my local area ip (LAN) and 116.68.66.85 is my internet IP address and the numbers starts in 3000 are the port number for the protocol

In addition to this, google also sends its usual parameters like mouse movement detector (To know the state of a chatter, idle or busy / normal )

It also sends the cpu speed info to google server to know about the video processing time. And your bandwidth and speed of internet is already there in google’s hand (See my post on Gmail Architecture to know about the 1pix speed calculation method of gmail)

 

 

 

count    3

req0_evtype       mousemove

req0_time          263866

req0_type          i

req1_focused     1

req1_type          cf

req2_jid

req2_json          ["mf","mf1.0","1.0.2.0",2,{"caps":7,"cpuSpeed":1664,"cpus":2}]

req2_type          j

 

 

Gmail sends request for every 3 seconds, and if your counterpart accepts the video chat invitation, your chat iframe loads with a flash object tag .

 

<embed id=”flash_yj_c_player2″ wmode=”window” pluginspage=”http://www.macromedia.com/go/getflashplayer” type=”application/x-shockwave-flash” seamlesstabbing=”false” allowfullscreen=”true” allowscriptaccess=”sameDomain” bgcolor=”#000000″ flashvars=”dbg=true&ap=player&nm=yj_c_player2&cb=Recv_yj_c_player2&os=windows&plugin=true&” src=”im/media-player.swf?ver=1.1.6″ style=”width: 100%; height: 100%;” name=”yj_c_player2″ quality=”high”/>

And this flash application does the later works.  This flash application communicate with google media server with Real Time Protocol and your video chat happens that way. The flash activex plugin support helps in accessing your webcam and mic.  Good day , have a nice chat … 

Mail Me for more information

Thanks and Regards

Sajith

 

 

 

Tags: architecture, behind, chat, desktop, featured, flash, gear, gmail, google, rtp, toolbar, udp, video, work

Many people already blogged about this article. I made the same experiment. It works.
If you want to find say xyz@gmail.com is invisible or not.
Open your gtalk app and type this email address in top search textbox

Click the profile, it opens in new window as usual

Click on the down arrow button in the top right corner of the window, and you can see Go off the record link there.

And type any chat, say “hi”

You will get a red text showing the “person is offline , can’t receive the message right now ” implies the  person is offline

(The above pic shows user is actually offline)

If this message does not appear, it means the user is invisible

(The above picture shows user is invisible- since no warning message in red color)

To know more about gmail and gmail chat visit my post series

http://www.sajithmr.com/series/gmail-architecture/

Regards

Sajith

Tags: chat, chatting, check, featured, gmail, gtalk, hack, invisible, off the record

Today i implemented gmail chat window , not an ajax chat with a chat server, but its client side implementation.

Here you can see the demo: http://www.sajithmr.com/gtalk/

Take this link in a new tab or window, and take any other website without closing it.

After 3 seconds , (Consider it as a new chat message arrived situation) you can see the google chat notification sound , and title changing. (I didn’t get the actual gtalk notification sound, so i used windows notify.wav file )

You know google (gmail) implemented its sound notification is via swf object. Here me too done the same.

I wrote two function to check whether the browser is in focus or not.

Here is the functions:

function lostFocus()
{
document.title = 'Sajith M.R Says...';
state = 'nonfocus';

played =  0 ;

changeColorRed();

alterTitle();

}

function gotFocus()
{
document.title = 'Gmail Inbox(1)';

state = 'focus';

played = 0 ;
}

The alterTitle() function calls in 3 seconds setTimeOut manner.

function alterTitle()
{

if(state =='nonfocus')

{
if ( document.title == 'Gmail Inbox(1)')
{

if(played == 0)
{
soundManager.play('notify');
played = 1;
}

document.title = 'Sajith M.R Says...';

}
else
document.title = 'Gmail Inbox(1)';

setTimeout("alterTitle()",3000);

}
}

The soundmanager.js file handles the swf flash object and sound triggering.

<script type=”text/javascript” src=”script/soundmanager.js”></script>

These three simple scripts together created this demo: http://www.sajithmr.com/gtalk/

If you want the whole source code , mail me: admin@sajithmr.com

Comment Please …

Regards

Sajith.M.R
http://www.sajith.name

Tags: chat, featured, gmail, gtalk, implementation, notification

You are absolutely a gmail user, because you visited my technical blog. If you like gmail chat also, here is some small tips you can play with.

Always set some attracting status message which suit to your character.

1)

If you wan to make bold , just add Astrix (*) before and after a particular word.

Eg: if you want status like below:

“The score never interested me, only the game.”

Set your status as:

“The *score* never interested me, only the game.”

2)

If you want to make it in italics, like below

“The score never interested me, only the game.”

do this:

“The score _never interested_ me, only the game.”

(dont remember the white space after _ and before _)

Also you can add Unicode character in your status. What to do is select some Unicode character from some website or here and paste on your status message . (not the Unicode number, but the character)

You can use gmail chat imoticons also as your status message

Emoticon	Key Combination
	<3
It’s a monkey!	|)
Rock out.	\m/
	: – o
	: D
	: (
	x – (
	B – )
	: ‘ (
	= D
	; )
	: – |
	= )
	: – D
	; ^ )
	; – )
	: – )
	: – /
	: P

I got some more from another reader Jackie’s comment. They are:

~ @ ~ poop
[:|] robot
: ( | ) monkey
: ( : ) cow
V . v . V crab

(remove space between letters, i put space to escape from wordpress editor )

Tags: chat, emoticons, gmail, status, stylish, unicode