MediaStreaming

Repository for the Media Streaming Module (T3.3).

This application allows to the user to call the extensions from a GUI interface:

Aspect of the MediaStreaming App

How to Install:

To install the application in your device is necessary to have generated an Apk file. To generate a new Apk file you can follow the guidelines on the next chapter (How to Develop).

in the next link you can find a good reference about to install an Apk in your device: https://www.lifewire.com/install-apk-on-android-4177185

How to Develop:

Install Git in your computer: https://github.com/git-guides/install-git
Choose a directory from your computer and download with Git the code using the link provided in this page:

git clone https://github.com/helios-h2020/h.app-MediaStreaming.git

Open Android Studio and open an existing project from the directory of your code downloaded. (To install Android Studio follow the next link: https://developer.android.com/studio/install)
To generate an Apk file from the code, select the Build option in the Menu Bar, select Build Bundles / Apk and select Build Apk. Once generated, you can find the file in (you can rename the file as you like):

Functionalities of the module:

This is a brief description of the modules used in the application.

Live Video Streaming:

This functionality allows the user to stream the video from the device camera to the Personal Storage via RTMP. To use this capability, an RTMP server is needed. To start the video streaming it is necessary to introduce the RTMP url like this: rtmp://$IP_of_server:1936/$App/$stream_name.

Values for $App:

360
plane
p2p

For more info review: https://github.com/helios-h2020/h.extension-MediaStreaming-LiveVideoStreaming

Video Call:

This part of the app creates a P2P video call between two users connected to the same signalling server.

For more info review: https://github.com/helios-h2020/h.extension-MediaStreaming-VideoCall

Video Player:

This functionality provides a polyvalent video player built with ExoPlayer. By default, the player uses the url provided in the values/strings.xml file.

For more info review: https://github.com/helios-h2020/h.extension-MediaStreaming-VideoPlayer

File Transfer:

Thanks to the TUS server, a user can upload content from the mobile phone to the personal storage. The upload can be paused and resumed if needed. The default configuration is:

TUS server url: https://builder.helios-social.eu/files/

This value can be modified in the values/strings.xml file.

For more info review: https://github.com/helios-h2020/h.extension-MediaStreaming-FileTransfer

P2P Mediastream:

Media content is distributed between the peers but using an approach similar to Torrent: peers become content sources to optimise the distribution.

Consumes media content generated by the Live Streaming module ($App parameter=p2p) via Web Browser through http://77.231.202.138:49199/

For more info review: https://github.com/helios-h2020/h.extension-MediaStreaming-WebTorrent

Multiproject dependencies

HELIOS software components are organized into different repositories so that these components can be developed separately avoiding many conflicts in code integration. However, the modules also depend on each other.

MediaStreaming depends of the projects:

How to configure the dependencies

To manage project dependencies developed by the consortium, the approach proposed is to use a private Maven repository with Nexus.

To avoid clone all dependencies projects in local, to compile the "father" project. Otherwise, a developer should have all the projects locally to be able to compile. Using Nexus, the dependencies are located in a remote repository, available to compile, as described in the next section. Also to improve the automation for deploy, versioning and distribution of the project.

How to use the HELIOS Nexus

Similar to other dependencies available in Maven Central, Google or others repositories. In this case we specify the Nexus repository provided by Atos: https://builder.helios-social.eu/repository/helios-repository/

This URL makes the project dependencies available.

To access, we simply need credentials, that we will define locally in the variables heliosUser and heliosPassword.

The build.gradle of the project define the Nexus repository and the credential variables in this way:

repositories {
        ...
        maven {
            url "https://builder.helios-social.eu/repository/helios-repository/"
            credentials {
                username = heliosUser
                password = heliosPassword
            }
        }
    }

And the variables of Nexus's credentials are stored locally at ~/.gradle/gradle.properties:

heliosUser=username
heliosPassword=password

To request Nexus username and password, contact with: jordi.hernandezv@atos.net

How to deploy a new version of the dependencies

Let's say that we want to deploy a new version of the videocall project. This project is a dependency of MediaStreaming. For Continuous Integration we use Jenkins. It deploys the configured projects (e.g., videocall) in different jobs, and the results are libraries packaged like AAR (Android ARchive). These packaged libraries are upload to Nexus and in this way, they are available to build the projects that depend on them (e.g., MediaStreaming). In the videocall example, Jenkins jobs generate automatically and aar library and store it at the Nexus repository to make it available.

Jenkins is the tool deployed by Atos (WP6 leader) in HELIOS to automate the generation of APKs, joining all the project modules. Due to the need of managing the dependencies, Atos has selected additional tools, as explained in this document.

After pushing a change to the master branch, the maintainer can builds the module by means of the job in the Jenkins interface. GitLab repositories are set to protect the master branch push and merge for the partner in charge of its module/project (maintainer).

To request Jenkins username and password, contact with: jordi.hernandezv@atos.net

How to use the dependencies

To use the dependency in build.gradle of the "father" project, you should specify the last version available in Nexus, related to the last Jenkins's deploy. For example, to declare the dependency on the videocall module and the respective version:

implementation 'eu.h2020.helios_social.modules.videocall:videocall:1.0.36'

For more info review: https://scm.atosresearch.eu/ari/helios_group/generic-issues/blob/master/multiprojectDependencies.md

Hot to use the dependencies locally

If you have modified one of the modules (and you have generated a .aar file) and you want to include this .aar as a dependency in the application whitout use Nexus dependencies:

Create libs folder inside app folder:

Open build.gradle at Project level and add flatDir{dirs 'libs'} :

allprojects {
   repositories {
      jcenter()
      flatDir {
        dirs 'libs'
      }
   }
}

Open build.gradle at app level and add .aar file:

dependencies {
     compile(name:'file_name', ext:'aar')
}