EXTENDING BROWSER SUPPORT OF REAL TIME MEDIA TO ANY AVAILABLE CODEC

1 . A method for extending web browser support to include real-time media having any media compression scheme without the need for media plugins, comprising:

receiving at a web client computing device a web page resource hosted by a server, the web page resource comprising at least one embedded script which defines a codec for real-time media communications;

initiating a real-time media session as between the web client and a remote computing device;

receiving at the web client real-time media data originating from the remote computing device and encoded using a media coding scheme;

performing media decoding at the web client within a web browser application using the codec defined in the at least one embedded script to convert the video data from the media coding scheme to a non-encoded media format.

2 . The method according to claim 1 , further comprising encoding real-time media data originating at the web client by using the codec defined in the embedded script to convert non-encoded real-time media data to the media coding scheme.

3 . The method according to claim 1 , wherein the at least one embedded script is comprised of JavaScript, and further comprising executing the at least one embedded script using a JavaScript engine.

4 . The method according to claim 1 , wherein the real-time media includes audio and video media.

5 . The method according to claim 1 , further comprising establishing a WebSocket communication channel between the web client and at least one server, and performing bi-directional communication of the real-time media in an encoded form between the web client and the at least one server using the WebSocket channel.

6 . The method according to claim 1 , wherein the web browser application supports WebRTC and further comprising receiving at the web client a second type of real-time media which uses a second encoding scheme which is supported by at least one WebRTC codec.

7 . The method according to claim 6 , wherein the second type of real-time media is audio media.

8 . The method according to claim 1 wherein the encoding produced by the codec defined in the embedded script comprises a data compression scheme.

9 . The method according to claim 1 , wherein the media encoding scheme is H.264.

10 . A method for extending web browser support to include real-time media having any media compression scheme without the need for media plugins, comprising:

using a computer network to receive respectively at first and second computing devices a web page resource hosted by a server, the web page resource comprising at least one embedded script which defines a codec for real-time media communications;

initiating a real-time media session as between the first and second computing devices;

performing media coding at the first computing device within a first web browser application using the at least one embedded script to convert the video data from a non-encoded media format to an encoded media format;

using the computer network to communicate the video data having the encoded media format from the first computing device to the second computing device;

receiving at the second computing device from the first computing device the video data having the encoded media format;

performing media decoding at the second computing device within a second web browser application using the at least one embedded script to convert the video data from the encoded media format to a non-encoded media format.

11 . The method according to claim 10 , wherein the at least one embedded script is comprised of JavaScript, and further comprising executing the at least one embedded script using a JavaScript engine.

12 . The method according to claim 10 , further comprising establishing a WebSocket communication channel between the first computing device and at least one server, and performing bi-directional communication of the video data in the encoded format as between the first computing device and the at least one server using the WebSocket channel.

13 . The method according to claim 10 , wherein the first web browser application supports WebRTC and further comprising receiving at the first computing device a second type of real-time media which uses a second encoding scheme which is supported by at least one WebRTC codec.

14 . The method according to claim 13 , wherein the second type of real-time media is audio media.

15 . The method according to claim 10 wherein the coding performed by the codec comprises a data compression scheme.