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Online screen share software is one such communication solution that business owners and managers can rely on to disseminate information almost instantaneously and get everyone involved on the same page. The Web Real-time Communication (WebRTC) based online screen share capability allows individuals in a virtual meeting to share their application screen with other team members via a browser.
As such, when one meeting attendee shares their screen online via MegaMeeting software, everyone in the virtual meeting has a view of their screen and the information contained therein – virtually frictionless communication.
The online screen share capability is quite powerful for businesses with team members located in multiple branches, companies with remote workers, or companies that work closely with consultants, suppliers, vendors, and their customers. To help understand the usefulness of this technology, we will explore the benefits of WebRTC-based online screen share software.
Frictionless communication and collaboration mean that every team member can access the tool and effectively use it to communicate. WebRTC standards make this possible by being platform- and device-independent. The entire WebRTC capability is embedded into supporting browsers, including Chrome, Firefox, Edge, and Safari. Importantly, all the APIs necessary for Web Real-Time Communication to function are present in the browser. For instance, the MainStream and PeerConnection APIs are native to browsers.
This means your employees, consultants, vendors, and customers do not need to download anything to utilize browser-based online screen sharing. There is no need for add-on plugins or dedicated applications.
Importantly, the WebRTC functionality is available for browsers across a wide variety of operating systems and devices. For instance, the native APIs are embedded in mobile and TV browsers in much the same way they are embedded in computer browsers. As such, conference or meeting attendees can access the shared screen on a wide variety of devices operating on different operating systems.
The fact that online screen sharing with no download is device- and platform-independent makes the tool easy to use and accessible to a lot more users.
The development and introduction of WebRTC was a collaborative effort spearheaded by some of the biggest technology companies in the world, including Google, Microsoft, and Apple. Consequently, no one company owns the patent and copyrights to the technology and the underlying APIs. Many of the elements designed for WebRTC are open-source and free for all to use.
For instance, the audio and video codecs that power WebRTC and make it possible are free. Opus, a scalable audio codec responsible for audio compression, is open source. Based on the CELT and SILK codecs, Opus has been designed with support for variable bitrate, high compression, and low encoding latency in mind. It is particularly useful in eliminating human voice distortions.
Another cornerstone of the WebRTC-based screen sharing technology is the video codec. WebRTC uses two different types of video codec; the VP8 and Opus. VP8 is embedded into WebRTC, ensuring high-speed video decoding, reduced video frame losses, and high-quality video. Without this codec, you cannot share screen online for free. Fortunately, these aspects and many other fundamental components of WebRTC are open source.
This reduces the cost associated with online screen share technology. If a business elects to develop its own online screen share software, they will incur the cost of software development only; there are no licensing fees to pay. That said, it is far better for businesses and personal users to invest in high-quality professional software such as MegaMeeting. In addition to getting an enhanced online screen sharing solution, you also get features that add benefit to the screen sharing tool, including file sharing, chat, email invitation capability, attendee registration, private branding, full-blown video conferencing and webinar applications (and much more).
While not all open-source projects lead to the creation of secure products, WebRTC is very secure, owing to the concerted effort of not only the technology companies backing the standards, but also the many developers across the globe that contribute to its success.
Crucial to the success of the standards is a priority on security. For instance, all the essential APIs that power audio and video sharing are built into the browser. As mentioned above, users do not have to download third-party plugins or other software that may contain malware.
Another security feature associated with WebRTC is its unique nature of data transfer; the transfer of audio and video data between users is encrypted. The connecting service is used for signaling, but the main audio-video data exchange happens between users' or attendees' browsers. This design reduces the avenues that hackers can use to eavesdrop into a session.
Here at MegaMeeting, we take the security of your communications a step further. As such, we use Secure RTP Protocol (SRTP) to mitigate the chances of your shared screen falling into the hand of hackers. This protocol was developed to encrypt audio and video communications between the various users. Without the decryption key, hackers cannot view the content of the shared screen, thereby protecting your company secrets and, in case you are dealing with a customer, the customer’s privacy.
Our software also is kept up to date on the security front, reducing the chances of a third party eavesdropping on your content or successfully hacking into your sessions.
As mentioned above, WebRTC makes use of the Opus and VP8 codecs for audio and video encoding. These codecs have been designed to retain the quality of audio and video from the source to the various users. For instance, Opus, based on Skype’s venerable SILK codec, has performance attributes that include high compression, low latency, and variable bitrate. As such, it is uniquely designed to stream high-quality audio, even in challenging internet conditions.
On the other hand, VP8 has been designed with video decoding at high speeds and improved video frame loss protection. These two codecs allow the capture of high-resolution images of the screen and audio from the source, as well as the transmission and display of equally high-resolution screen video and audio to the event attendees.
Closely related to the advantage discussed above is the adaptability of the online screen share software. While the standards can give you the highest quality audio and video stream of the captured screen, the quality of internet you use might not allow you to fully benefit.
Whether it is due to low bandwidth, network jitters, or any other problem, a problem with your network will inadvertently affect the online screen share stream. To deal with this issue, WebRTC native media and network engines continuously and dynamically adjust the quality of stream on every end-user’s device or computer.
If the network of a user experiences issues, the engines lower the quality of the online screen share stream, making it possible for the user to stay connected to the stream. Importantly, individual browsers implement the dynamic control of quality, reducing disruption to other users. This is achieved by the receiving browsers’ Secure Audio Video Profile with Feedback and Multiplexed RTP Control Protocol embedded, which send the network conditions of the receiving browser to the sending browser for the media and network engines to use. When you share your screen online with no download, you know the quality will smoothly adapt to any network hiccups.
For business owners and managers who want to share a screen online with their customers, there is a marketing opportunity for them. When you use an online screen share software bearing your brand images, your domain, your brand colors, and your own verbiage, you come off as all the more professional. In this regard, MegaMeeting provides white label screen share solutions for you to brand and customize to suit your brand image and needs.
Additionally, we also provide APIs that enable you to incorporate the online screen share experience into your application. This is a good solution for customer-care oriented communication, as it allows for an memorable, interactive user experience.
Frictionless collaboration requires near-instant sharing of information. As you can appreciate, WebRTC-based online screen share software excels at seamless sharing of data. The fact that virtual meeting or conference attendees can share the device’s screen, as well as files or other information, makes for seamless distribution of content. This is quite powerful.
What is not available for all users are the add-on tools that premium online screen share software developers create to enhance the collaborative environment. A good example is MegaMeeting’s suite of add-ons that take the online screen share experience a notch higher.
The list of add-ons includes a file-sharing feature that allows meeting or conference attendees to exchange files and documents securely and efficiently. Our tool enables attendees to view documents as the meeting is going on. Additionally, the tool can send files to specific attendees, rather than to the entire meeting.
Another feature that MegaMeeting offers to improve the collaborative environment is the chat feature. Our chat makes it possible for screen share meeting attendees to privately chat between individual attendees or to group chat with everyone. Importantly, the chats are secured to ensure your utmost privacy.
Our recording feature also comes in handy when it comes to archiving, reviewing, or repurposing the content. You can record the session, download an .MP4 file and store the recording for use as needed. While very useful, the recording feature is not native WebRTC.
Finally, we offer email invitation and secure meeting link tools. These features combine to give meeting or conference organizers the ability to develop invitation emails that contain secure meeting links. You can customize the email invite link to make it unique for each attendee, or you can use a single invite link for all participants.
Secure meeting links improve the security of your meeting. You can generate a unique secure link for each participant to act as the access key. By clicking the links, the participant gains access to the meeting room. Importantly, nobody without a secure link can access the online screen share meeting; the attendance to the meeting or conference is controlled by the secure links. When you share screen online for free, you want to make sure the people seeing it are the people you intend.
Online screen sharing is incredibly powerful. As far as communication and collaboration tools go, browser-based online screen share software is one of the most effective tools individuals and businesses can use; there is no doubt about that.
However, the current state of online screen sharing is not an end-all, be-all tool. There are plenty of opportunities to develop and improve upon the standards and the API. Whether it is from a user-experience perspective or features incorporated into the tool, the capability of this WebRTC-based communication tool will only improve and expand over time.
The development and proliferation of virtual reality and augmented reality are on the brink of redefining how we communicate. There are more companies now developing and perfecting augmented reality and virtual reality to bring these technologies to the market in the near future.
As such, there is a case to be made for bringing augmented and virtual reality together with online screen share software to create a virtual or augmented screen view. The nature of WebRTC makes it easy for developers to come up with ways of incorporating browser-based multi-media-rich communications with augmented and virtual reality.
No matter what the future of online screen sharing will be, you can rest assured that MegaMeeting will be at the forefront of innovating and bringing new technologies and capabilities to market. Given our goal of taking a customer-centric approach to technology development, we aim to provide our customers and clients with all the tools and capabilities to improve their communications capability and strengths.