New Chrome Beta includes improved real-time audio/video calling, HTML5 track support

Google announced on the Chromium Blog today a new Chrome Beta release that includes a number of new features to make it easier for developers to create web apps with HTML5 video and audio/video calling. In the blog post, Google’s Justin Uberti explained the new release of Chrome now includes the PeerConnection API that allows developers to implement real-time voice and video calling features without using a plug-in:

Together, PeerConnection and the getUserMedia API represent the next steps in WebRTC, a new standard which aims to allow high quality video, audio, and data communications on the web. Check out this funky video chat demo to see how the PeerConnection API can be combined with other web technologies to create fun new video chat experiences. To start the video chat demo, send the url to a friend.

As for HTML5 video, today’s Chrome Beta update includes track support that provides developers with an easy way to include metadata, chapters, captions, subtitles, and other features in HTML5 video content using HTML DOM and JavaScript. Google also announced it added the Media Source API for adjusting video playback backed on network conditions. In the image above, we see a video enhanced with track to include a Google Map and StreetView.

More benefits of track support and a demo video is below:

It can be used to make videos accessible, split videos into sections, and create new unique video experiences. Track provides developers with a unified, programmatic mechanism for doing all these things in the HTML DOM and Javascript. In the following demo, track is used to enhance a video of a bike ride with metadata including a Google Map showing the biker’s route and Google Street View from the biker’s location.