OpenVidu 2.23.0

5 min readSep 22, 2022

Hello, dear OpenVidu developers! Here we are back with a new version of OpenVidu in which we have undertaken a global refactoring of our documentation. This is something we have been wanting to do for a long time, and we are sure it will reduce the learning curve for new users. Take a look to the new features and changes below.

NEW FEATURES

Renewed documentation and tutorials

We have made a complete revision of our documentation to make it clearer, more precise and easier to use. We have also updated all our tutorials to use a more production-ready approach than before. These are the main improvements of the new documentation:

There is now an introductory section explaining the basic concepts of OpenVidu and how it fits in your application’s stack: Developing your video app.
There are now basic application server samples for multiple languages. These applications are minimal functional backends ready to work against OpenVidu. Every tutorial is now prepared to work with any of these application servers. You can take any of them as a starting point of your backend. Check out new section Application Server.

For the Application Client of your OpenVidu app, we have divided the documentation into three different sections, from the most straightforward to the most customizable: Ready-to-use component, OpenVidu Components and Full control of the UI. Everyone of them with their own guided tutorials. And all of them are prepared to work against any of the application servers mentioned in the previous point.

New features in OpenVidu Call

Our flagship application OpenVidu Call continues to improve with the addition of some new useful features:

Recording: from now on it will be very easy to record your video meetings in OpenVidu Call. Just open the “Recording” side panel to manage the recording of your session. The first user connecting to the session will be considered its administrator and will be granted permission to manage the recording process.

Change your camera and microphone on the fly: now you can change your input devices during the call. Before, the device selection was restricted to the pre-join page.

Languages support: OpenVidu Call now supports a wide range of languages. Just select the desired language and all the text elements of the interface will adapt accordingly.

Advanced TURN support in native Android/iOS apps

We have updated the native applications for Android and iOS to support the different TURN configurations offered by OpenVidu. This means unifying the operation of these applications with respect to those using the openvidu-browser.js SDK: now they are able to use the OpenVidu TURN server or an external TURN server. Connecting your users from secure networks will be easier with the new versions of these mobile apps.

OpenVidu Ionic now supports native desktop applications with Electron integration

OpenVidu Ionic has always been a good option to build your OpenVidu mobile application. And now you can use it also to build native desktop applications for Windows, MacOS and Linux using the same source code. Visit this section of the documentation to learn how.

RTMP and SIP support

We have included in the renewed documentation two new sections offering commercial support for RTMP streaming (you can stream OpenVidu sessions to services such as YouTube or Twitch) and SIP integration (add phone calls as participants in an OpenVidu session). Both services are offered as external modules that to be acquired will require contact with OpenVidu team through commercial@openvidu.io.

You can read the official documentation about these new features here:

BUG FIXES

OpenVidu Pro/Enterprise: there was a race condition when manually launching multiple Media Nodes at the same time that could end with some of them not being properly added to the cluster. This is now fixed.
OpenVidu Enterprise HA: fixed HTTP status on some REST API endpoints that were overriding the real status with 500.
openvidu-browser: method Publisher.replaceTrack produced an echo effect when replacing the audio track. Now this is fixed with commit 17ff910. Related issues 642 and PR 700.
openvidu-browser: when calling method Publisher.replaceTrackwith an audio track, that was deactivating events publisherStartSpeaking, publisherStopSpeaking and streamAudioVolumeChange. This is fixed now.
openvidu-browser: the recordingStarted event wasn’t being fired for new participants of a session, if they joined it after the recording was started. Now the event is always triggered for new users if the session is being recorded.
openvidu-components: device labels were not shown in iOS. Now they are.

BREAKING CHANGES

Configuration property OPENVIDU_DOMAIN_OR_PUBLIC_IPhas been finally removed. More than two years ago OpenVidu 2.14.0 deprecated it in favor of DOMAIN_OR_PUBLIC_IP(https://docs.openvidu.io/en/2.14.0/reference-docs/openvidu-config/).
Configuration property SUPPORT_DEPRECATED_API is now false by default. It still exists, so you can turn it back to true if necessary. But it is absolutely advisable to migrate to the new API endpoints (introduced in OpenVidu 2.16.0, Nov 2020). See 2.16.0 release notes. An upcoming release will completely remove support for old API endpoints.
Although this is not really a breaking change, the Ionic tutorial of OpenVidu now uses Capacitor by default as hybrid runtime, instead of using Cordova. The reasoning behind this change is pretty obvious: for quite some time now the Ionic team has considered Capacitor their primary choice over Cordova, even if they still support both of them. The Capacitor-based tutorial can now be found at openvidu-ionic, and you can still check out the Cordova-based tutorial at openvidu-ionic-cordova.

What’s coming up next…

We are already working hard in adding real time subtitles in OpenVidu. This will be a breaking point in accessibility and it will enable exciting new features such as automatic transcription of sessions and real-time translation from/to different languages. Coming at some point in October 2022!

Stay tuned for next iterations! You can follow us on Twitter and a Star in GitHub is always welcome :)