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Lightning Talk Intermediate

We should be more excited for WebCodecs!

Approved
Session Description

WebCodecs is a new, open specification by the W3C group. It has a game-changing API that allows a unified, platform-agnostic API to developers for extremele fine control over media: in particular video and audio encoding and decoding.

Traditionally this has always been a complex matter and typically required a server + tools like FFmpeg to start with. But soon we will have complete in-browser implementations: Chrome and Firefox are already implemented, Safari is soon to follow suit. This will unlock a completely new paradigm of working with media and for some workflows, can even replace FFmpeg altogether.

Since the tech is so new, the session can act as a gateway/entry-point for intermediate + advanced developers to learn about WebCodecs and explore it further for their own use-cases. We are one of the first companies to use WebCodecs (alongside WebGPU) in our production apps and can support our session with real-world examples.

A basic session outline could be:

  1. Overview of the WebCodecs API

  2. Differences from existing media technologies

  3. Platform support: current and planned

  4. Real-world examples of using it

  5. A few jumping off points to start one's own exploration

Key Takeaways

  1. Learn about a new, emerging media technology: WebCodecs

  2. Understand some use-cases for which it can already start being used

  3. Comparisons between FFmpeg and WebCodecs implementations to see the pros/cons of each

References

https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/WebCodecs_API
https://ffmpeg.org
https://www.w3.org/TR/webcodecs/

Session Categories

Technology architecture
Tutorial about using a FOSS project
Engineering practice - productivity, debugging
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Main track

Speakers

Siddharth Jha
Founder | Helmer

Siddharth, who prefers to go by Sid, is a designer-engineer hybrid specializing in multimedia. He's an avid open-source contributor to media and UI-led projects and spends his spare time making things look nicer and clicking photographs.

He previously worked at Headout, where he built prototypes, tools and helped set up teams. Now, he's building Helmer, an infinite-canvas based video tool for creatives and businesses.

 https://x.com/clearlysid
Siddharth Jha

Reviews

It's exciting to hear about new groundbreaking technologies. especially ones that will make web devs lives much easier.

Reviewer #1 Approved

This looks pretty good as a lightning talk. Browser based codec APIs provide a new way to tap into accelerated codecs for rich applications right inside the browser. It's not clear what applications are being proposed that replace FFmpeg.. but that's a nitpick that can easily be checked in the next level review. Extra points if the author can cover any impacts on devs related to API implementation differences.

Reviewer #2 Approved

Agreed with other reviewers, this is a new development in browsers and worth covering.

Reviewer #3 Approved

Webcodecs benefits FOSS with the most significant feature of platform-agnostic media processing and low latency. This helps reducing dependency on the proprietary tools, hence makes it relevant to this venue.

Reviewer #4 Approved