Community Forums: Tablet support for webcam and VoIP.

1411115562

Pro

So I purchased a month's worth of supporter status and much to my chagrin, I discovered that video chat with my friends on roll20 with my nexus 7 was not possible. I found this in the support section for tablets: ” Video Chat is Unsupported Mobile browsers don't currently support Flash or WebRTC, so it is currently not possible to use video chat while you are playing in Roll20.” However, this seems to be mistaken. When I check mark ”request desktop site” on the chrome app when using roll20, I am able to join my friends in video chat with the built in mic and camera perfectly. What gives? I'd be happy to keep using this setting, unfortunately since I'd also be on the desktop site, roll20 wouldn't be optimized for tablet control. So if tablets cannot support webrtc, how am I able to use it by simply changing to desktop mode?

1411115738

Edited 1411115863

Gauss

Forum Champion

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The wiki stated that it is mobile browsers that cannot support WebRTC. You were using the desktop browser which is different so there is no mistake. However, as you also discovered desktop browsers are not optimized for tablet control.

1411119683

GoodBob

Pro

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Forgive my ignorance but how does selecting ”request desktop site” in my nexus 7 chrome app change it from a tablet browser to a desktop one? Doesn't the fact that it still is on my tablet as a tablet app negate this? As far as I know, there is a fundamental difference between the chrome .exe and the chrome app due to the hardware architectures of both devices (e.g. tablets unable to play flash).

1411119826

Gauss

Forum Champion

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Ahhh, I see what you mean now. I don't know, I am not a Dev. I will forward this to the Devs though.

1411121603

Edited 1411121820

Gold

Forum Champion

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The Wiki, as you quoted, says it is Unsupported. Unsupported by definition doesn't mean it won't work, it just means Roll20 isn't testing and bug-fixing for that particular use. From the description it sounds like you found an unsupported feature that doesn't work very well i.e. no video on the mobile version = supported tablet use. or get video without tablet gesture support on the desktop version = unsupported use, which has drawbacks. Technically, the wiki statement errs where it says "currently it is not possible to use video chat" as you found it is possible ; it could say more accurately, "currently it is not possible to use video chat except on certain tablets with possible drawbacks", or, "currently it is not possible to use video chat while in mobile browser mode".

1411135509

Riley D.

Roll20 Team

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It may be that they added WebRTC support in a recent update to Chrome mobile. I will see if we can fully support it. However, my main concern at that point would be performance. For example, WebGL is now going to be supported on some mobile browsers (e.g. Safari on iPad in iOS 8) but I'm not sure if it's necessarily a good idea to enable support for it since it will a) drain the battery like crazy and b) probably not have great rendering performance compared to a full discrete graphics card in a desktop/laptop. But we'll see what we find out. In the mean time, checking "Show as Desktop" causes your mobile browser to identify itself as desktop Chrome, which means Roll20 won't load in any of the special "mobile" stuff we need to make it work well for tablets (for example, two-finger panning). So while you're gaining WebRTC with that option, you're pretty much losing all the other stuff you need.

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Tablet support for webcam and VoIP.