Author: Polina Sapunova

I’m a co-founder, responsible for marketing and finance. Joined Fora team in 2010. Till 2016 I was actively selling and gained experience in software product analysis. Know competitors of our clients projects, recommend technologies and architecture on a high level, and modern trends in functionality and UI/UX. Give our developers recommendations on SEO. St. Petersburg State University graduate, Faculty of Economics. CIMA Dip MA.

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How to create a custom Internet TV streaming service: features, technical pitfalls, devices, price

Post author By Polina Sapunova
Post date 01.02.2022
1 Comment on How to create a custom Internet TV streaming service: features, technical pitfalls, devices, price

Internet TV app on a smart TV and a smartphone

How to create a video streaming service like Netflix for your business? If you are not a technical person, you may feel puzzled. What technical pitfalls to foresee for each function – to not face unexpected reworks and costs? What technologies to pick for each device? How much may it cost? We’ll help in this article using our 16 years worth of experience in video software development.

Fora Soft Example

The difference between Internet TV, OTT, IPTV

Features

Devices

Examples of OTT services

How much it costs

Example of an Internet TV product developed by Fora Soft

Internet-TV-app-design — Vodeo OTT application for iOS for Janson Media Internet TV service

100.000 users of Janson Media Inc. can now watch movies and series in the iOS app. Rent a film and watch it in as good quality as your Internet connection allows.

Internet TV, OTT, IPTV software development – what’s the difference

OTT and IPTV are 2 kinds of Internet TV – television delivered to viewers by the Internet Protocol – IP:

OTT – Over-The-Top or Television over the Internet, uses an open network. It’s the regular Internet you use for emails or website browsing. Examples: Netflix, YouTube, Hulu. Use it on the phone, tablet, smartTV, laptop, or desktop computer – at home or outside, even in another country. When you have the Internet, log in to your account and watch.
IPTV – Internet Protocol Television, uses a closed network and not the public Internet – you access the TV through a private managed Local Area Network – LAN, or Wide Area Network – WAN. E.g., if an Internet provider makes a net of his own cable – this is the provider’s own private LAN, not accessible from the Internet. Examples: Comstar IPTV, DIRECTV STREAM, Movistar+. Works at your home only, where the cable is.

Check our infographic below to see more on the difference between OTT and IPTV as well as Cable and Satellite TV, or read more in this detailed article.

television-system-types — Difference between 5 kinds of television: Broadcast TV, Satellite TV, Cable TV, IPTV, OTT

We at Fora Soft have spent years developing software for both types of Internet TV, including Set-Top-Box firmware, too. And, since OTT and IPTV interfaces extend the concepts used for Satellite and Cable TV receivers, our team is capable of developing frontends for these kinds of televisions, as well.

Features for OTT and IPTV platforms

The most frequent and interesting features of Internet TV applications. At Fora Soft we develop custom software, so if you need something extra – we can plan and implement it.

4 types of content: live, pseudo-live, on schedule, on-demand

How to create a streaming service? Start with the decision of what type of content you’ll have.

streaming content type — Difference between 4 types of content live, pseudo-live, on-schedule, on-demand

Live streaming

It’s a live TV broadcast. You stream on the air – the audience watches right when everything happens.

How to create a live streaming service: the choice of technology is a balance between latency, scalability, and cost.

WebRTC – for sub-second latency but the audience of fewer than 500 viewers
HLS – for a big audience of 500 to millions of viewers but with a latency of 2-60 seconds
WebRTC with Kurento and adjustments – for sub-second latency and a big audience but for a higher cost: read more in our article

Use cases: sports streaming, e.g. a football match, a show with questions from the public in real-time. Live streaming is more expensive than pseudo-live streaming – explained in the Pseudo-live streaming section below. So if you don’t really need real-time, it’s better to use pseudo-live streaming.

Pseudo-live streaming

On classic TV, they call it live-to-tape: a pre-made recording broadcasted to all users simultaneously. Stream is not real-time – it’s pre-recorded, then transcoded on the server before going to viewers.

You get better video quality for less money when you do not compress in real-time:

Less money:
The stream has a smaller size because there’s time to compress more effectively. Each of the video resolutions has a higher degree of compression. The smaller size goes through the servers the fewer you pay for that.
Better picture quality:
What video resolution to show depends on the user’s Internet speed. The same video size has a lower resolution (worse quality) in real-time and higher resolution (better quality) when compressed before sending to users. The same user has the same video size limitation due to his Internet speed. Therefore the user gets a better quality video – with a higher resolution – with pseudo-live streaming.

Use cases: TV shows with no real-time interactions with the audience, e.g. news streaming, The Voice.

Streaming on schedule

Organizing pre-recorded streams into a grid gives a totally TV-like experience: a set of parallel channels with a set of shows going one after another on each channel.

We program the ability for the admin to create the channels and build their schedule with videos. Different versions for different countries and timezones.

Use cases: managing a TV channel with different TV show streaming, e.g. Discovery+.

Video-on-demand (VOD)

A collection of movies, series, and other content that you can buy and watch at any moment – even radio. Some of the VOD features:

Free and paid videos
Favorite videos
Recommended videos – set by admins or picked based on the user’s taste
Filter and sort by genre, popular, newest, highest rating
Direct search for videos – with a virtual keyboard for SmartTVs to type from a remote
Rate videos
Pin code before opening adult videos
Schedule video release and expiration date – when the video stops being available

Use cases: movie and series streaming and distribution, e.g. Netflix.

Video recording

tv show recording — 3 types of stream recording

Recording in real-time
Click record while watching online to record a show for your home collection. Download the recording to a user device, store it in the application, or in some third-party storage service. Or all of the above.

Recording on schedule

Set a time, and the recording will switch on. For STB-based solutions you need to leave the STB switched on.

Time shifting

Some channels support timeshift – rewind the allowed hours back and watch what you’ve missed.

Video player for video streaming services

Video controls

Play, pause, stop, rewind, fast-forward buttons.

Subtitles

Upload a subtitles file to videos in formats like SRT, SUB, SSA, AQT, ASS, JSON. These are the most popular ones. If yours is not on the list, we can program support for other formats.

Picture-in-Picture

floating window player streaming — Picture-in-picture in Internet TV – OTT or IPTV

The video you watch now shrinks into a small one in the corner while you look through a TV guide or pick another show. Works in browser: check a PiP demo at the end of our article. Works on mobile devices as well: read more about PiP on Android in this our article.

Payment and monetization in a streaming platform

Monetization by ads

Advertising-based Video-on-Demand – AVOD: viewers watch movies and series interrupted by ads. Example: YouTube free version.

advertising in player example — Set up advertising revenue for streaming platform

Advertisements on a website page or app page but not in the video: advertising networks like Google Ads integrate and show relevant ads to visitors. Website or app owner gets income from ads views.

streaming service monetisation — Advertisements on a website page or app page but not in the video

Paid subscription

Content unlocks for watching when the user subscribes. Subscription payments are automatically charged from his card. Monthly or annual.

Most popular, reliable, and easy for users payment systems: Stripe, PayPal. The owner registers an account with them to receive payments. Users just pay by card the way they are used to.

Buy a movie

Transactional Video-on-Demand – TVOD: pay for each piece of content: for one movie or one season of a show.

Hybrid model

Combine the most suitable ways of monetization for your project

A mix of the models above. For example, a free plan with ads, a subscription to unlock some part of content, and some movies and series are paid for.

Access code

Enter the code on the TV to unlock access. Convenient for IPTV apps, e.g. for hotels.

Content Delivery Network (CDN)

You can’t beat physics: the longer the distance between your server and your audience, the bigger the delay. Taking this problem on in a straightforward way, by buying or renting hardware all around the world, will cost you a fortune.

CDN solves this problem. CDN is that network of servers in almost every country that someone has already bought and is ready to rent you. Each piece of your content is downloaded on each server – but only when the 1st user requests it. So the very 1st user still has the delay, but all the following do not.

Amazon’s CloudFront and Cloudflare are CDNs that we use most frequently at Fora Soft. Read more on CloudFront and Cloudflare differences in the article.

Adaptive video quality

Users should watch videos in the best quality possible. The limitation is their Internet speed. The program keeps an eye on it and automatically adjusts the video resolution to keep the video from stuttering even on a volatile network.

Video processing

Different formats

Converts videos into different formats to deliver to different end-users’ devices.

Different resolutions

Converts videos in different resolutions to deliver to users with different Internet speeds.

Compression

Decreases video size without a loss in quality by removing doubling data.

Split into chunks

When the videos are delivered chunked, the user never needs to stand by until a full movie is downloaded. The playback starts almost immediately, and keeps on, while the remaining parts are being downloaded in the background. Scrobble through a movie seamlessly – once you move the playhead to the desired location, the stream will resume in a moment, no matter how long was the skipped part.

Digital Right Management (DRM)

– encryption to protect videos from stealing and unauthorized watching. The major studios will only let you sell their content if your platform is well-protected against copyright infringement.

When a user clicks play, the program checks the license server if he has the key. The server gives the decryption key if all is fine, and the player decrypts the video file with it and plays it.

Technologies:

AES128 – for any browser or device
ClearKey – for any browser or device except iOS and websites in Safari
FairPlay for iOS and websites in Safari
Widewine DRM for Android and websites in Google Chrome
Full DRM compatibility with different devices and browsers see here

Devices for which Fora Soft develops streaming television

streaming-software-development — Devices for Internet TV software development

Web browsers – use without download
Smartphones and tablets – iOS and Android
Desktop PCs and laptops
Smart TVs – Samsung, LG, Android-based STBs, Apple TV
Virtual reality (VR) headsets

Website is the simplest form of OTT online cinema.

It opens on laptops and desktop computers.
If optimized for mobile devices – it looks and works well on smartphones and tablets in a browser. Optimization requires extra time and cost because the UI for each page should be re-thought over for smaller screens.
Modern smart TVs open websites as well – so you can watch such OTT on a smartTV. iPhone users share screens to modern smart TVs with 3 taps too – so for them, it’s even easier, and the full-screen view looks exactly like any other movie on TV.

So if you want the most cost-effective option, a web Internet TV application is the best.

How to make a streaming website? We use JavaScript, framework React for web development, mainly WebRTC, HLS, and Kurento technologies for video streaming, and FFMPEG and GStreamer for video processing.

iOS and Android native apps offer a better user experience. They are one tap away from the users, they don’t have to search for them in a browser. So for established media companies, we develop mobile apps.

How to make a mobile streaming platform? We use native programming languages: Swift for iOS, Kotlin for Android, mainly WebRTC, HLS, and Kurento technologies for video streaming, and FFMPEG and GStreamer for video processing.

Smart TVs have application stores too. It’s easier to launch a TV application like Netflix than search the site and share the phone’s screen. So for better user experience, we develop applications for Smart TVs. And yes, we can build a Netflix clone for your streaming TV service.

How to create such an OTT platform or make an IPTV server? We use JavaScript for Samsung and LG Smart TVs, Swift for AppleTV, Kotlin for AndroidTV.

Examples of OTT services worldwide

When planning your Internet TV app, it’s wise to check the best examples in the industry. The ones with the biggest worldwide user base:

Netflix – 214 million subscribers in 2021
Amazon Video – 120 million
Disney+ – 118 million
HBO Max
Apple TV Plus

Check more indicators in this research from Statista.

? How much development of an OTT or IPTV app costs

At Fora Soft, we develop custom software and do not sell ready one. So all the functions listed above are the most useful examples based on our experience. We may develop all of them for you or just a few, or add something else.

That is why we do planning before programming like they do a blueprint before building a house. Analysts draw a wireframe, then estimate your project. Approximate indications:

✅ The simplest VOD OTT app for 1 platform

3-5 months
About $36,000

A fully functioning system with VOD movies, login, simplest payment, rating, search. 1 platform means an iOS app or a web app for example.

✅ The simplest IPTV app for 1 platform

4-6 months
Around $49,000

A fully functioning system with channels like at hotels.

✅ OTT solution similar to Netflix for 1 platform

From 12 months
From $115,000

A fully functioning system with different types of VOD content, live shows, login, a hybrid payment system, search, ratings, recommendations, special offers.

Call us to discuss your needs. Or send us your requirements and we’ll provide you with an estimation.

Tags Internet-TV

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Software Development for In-Sync Music Jamming Online by Video Chat

Post author By Polina Sapunova
Post date 21.10.2021
No Comments on Software Development for In-Sync Music Jamming Online by Video Chat

Example from Fora Soft: musicians can survive the pandemic with WorldCastLive.com. The band connects in a video call, invites the fans to watch, and they jam online remotely at a live concert. 100% in sync, with less than a second delay.

Features for virtual music jam by a video chat

Audio quality

Synchronization

Why not make music online with friends and strangers in any video chat? I take the guitar, call Joe with drums, add Sarah with a piano, and we all play. Because it doesn’t work: participants’ sound is not in perfect sync. It’s ok for a talk but not for a real time video music collaboration app.

We develop video conferences for musicians to play together, learn and teach, and hold concerts.

Sync for listeners

Each musician produces an audio track. Our software marks them, recognizes delays for each one of them, and syncs them into one audio file on the server. It’s streamed to the audience.

But if this happens afterward on the server, how can the musicians perform together? They have to hear each other in sync right now to play together.

Sync for the musicians

We calibrate audiotracks: start sound at one node, and listen to it when it reaches the other node – thus measure the delay. Let’s imagine we have a drummer, a guitarist, and a singer. The drummer starts, his audiotrack goes to the guitarist. The guitarist starts, the 2 audio tracks go to the singer in sync: the delay is added to the drummer track with which it goes to the guitarist. It snowballs from there: each next musician hears the previous musicians only. The singer hears the guitarist and the drummer, the guitarist hears the drummer only, the drummer does not hear anyone.

Clear sound: right audio codec with right settings

clear-sound-music-video-chat — Audio quality in music software

In WebRTC the developer picks an audio codec. Some are better for voice, some for music. Choose Opus: the best sound quality plus low latency – Mozilla thinks so too.

To pick Opus is not everything. By default, WebRTC is set for voice calls so that the voice would sound clearer and louder. So, for music jam online in real time we need to make 3 adjustments:

Background noise removal distorts sound when playing music. We switch it off.
~40 kb/s is a standard bitrate for a voice call. Music needs 128 kb/s minimum. Opus supports up to 510 kb/s – so we increase it.
We increase the number of audio channels from 1 to 2: from mono to stereo.

Real-time streaming

Jam online with no latency

Subsecond latency is a norm in video chats – otherwise speaking to each other would not be possible. In video broadcasts to thousands of people, a few-second latency is a norm. When jam online with other musicians remote by a video chat, latency must be subsecond even though thousands are watching. Read how we do it in the article.

Monitoring to prevent latency: Internet connection, sound card, audio output

jam-online-no-lantency — Online rehearsal with no lantency

See the sound quality of each musician in real-time: green for good, yellow for decent, and red for unacceptable. Quality parameters: Internet connection, sound card latency, audio output.

For example, if one participant has slow Internet, the video conference won’t be real-time and low latency music collaboration is not possible. So his Internet shows red, and the slow user knows that he needs to fix the problem.

Connect professional musical equipment

music-equipment-settings — Instruments settings on music software

Output: sound cards and audio interfaces

For sound output, connect a sound card or an audio interface for professional sound. Show a volume bar for that output that displays volume in real-time.

Input: professional microphones, musical instruments, and amplifiers

For sound input, connect a guitar or other electronic instruments directly to the video conference. Or connect the instrument to an amplifier to increase the power of a signal and plug the amplifier in the conference. See the input’s signal level change in real-time.

Professional tools for musicians

music-software-set-up — Musician personal sound settings

Crossfader

Set different volumes for different audio channels. Make your own instrument louder than the call, set it to the same volume, or listen to the call louder than your instrument. Mute audio channels.

See the volume set for each instrument in the music jam over the Internet. The range can be from (-12)dB up to (+12)dB with a step of 1 dB.

Equalizer

A list of ranges with sliders to raise and lower the volume of the frequency range between 32 Hz, 64 Hz, 125 Hz, 250 Hz, 500 Hz, 1 kHz, 2 kHz, 4 kHz, 8 kHz,16 kHz. Change how everything sounds: sound volume, noises, the effect of moving closer and farther. Remember the settings and apply them to other calls.

Metronome

Add a metronome and choose BPM for better music collaboration.

Communication tools

Talkback

The band coordinator gives feedback to musicians during the live concert. Speak privately to one musician to not disturb the others. Push to talk, release the button to mute yourself.

Text chat

Let the audience talk without interrupting the performance. Send text messages, emojis, images, even documents. See the participant list.

Recording

Record the concert and let those who haven’t seen it live watch it. Record lessons to re-watch.

Use cases when a video conference with music in sync comes in handy

A platform for online virtual concert live
Online band or choir rehearsal with remote musicians from different locations
E-learning for music
Virtual karaoke party online

Devices that Fora Soft develops for

music-app-development — Music apps and software development

Web browsers – use without download
Smartphones and tablets – iOS and Android
Desktop PCs and laptops
Smart TVs – Samsung, LG, Android-based STBs, Apple TV
Virtual reality (VR) headsets

How much development of a conference with synchronized music costs

We develop custom applications tailored to your needs. That is why firstly we plan it, draw a wireframe, then estimate. To give approximate indications:

✅ The simplest 1-on-1 video chat component adjusted for music

2-4 weeks
About $7,000
Could be useful for teaching music lessons

It is not a fully functioning system with login, payment, etc. – just the video chat component. You can integrate it into your application.

✅ The simplest video conference component for musicians from different places to perform for audiences of thousands of people

1,5-2,5 months
around $28,000

Not a fully functional system with registration, payments, etc. – just the video conference component. You can integrate it into your solution.

✅ Simplest fully functional e-learning system with 1-on-1 video chat adjusted for music

3-4 months
About $36,000

A fully functioning system with registration, teacher list, payment. Applicable for 1 platform, e.g. web, or iOS, or Android.

✅ The simplest fully functional video conference system with music in sync

4-5 months
around $54,000

It is built from the ground up for one platform, such as web, iOS, or Android. Users register, pay, and play music together for audiences of thousands of people.

✅ Big musical video conferencing solutions

We assign a dedicated team and work ongoing. These are products that proved their success and generated profit.

Send us your requirements – we’ll get back with an approximate estimation. Or let’s have a call to clarify what you need.

Tags music software development

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Video conference and text chat software development

Post author By Polina Sapunova
Post date 19.08.2021
No Comments on Video conference and text chat software development

The video conferencing market volume is $4.66 billion (TrueList). The global video conferencing market size is projected to grow to $22.5 billion by 2026 according to Video Conferencing Statistics 2022

We specialise in developing video and multimedia software and app. We have been doing it since 2005. Along the way we created a lot of messengers like Speakk and conferencing system like ProVideoMeeting. Freelancer or an agency that does not specialize in video software may pick the technology they are best familiar with. We will build custom product tailored for your needs.

Features for video, audio, and text communication software

WebRTC videoconference

We develop for any number of participants:

One-on-one video chats
Video conferences with an unlimited number of participants

50 live videos on one screen at the same time was the maximum we’ve done. For example, Zoom has 100 live video participants, though it shows 25 live videos on one screen. To see the others, you switch between screens.

Some other functions: custom backgrounds, enlarging videos of particular participants, picking a camera and microphone from the list, muting a camera and microphone, and a video preview of how you look.

Conference recording

Record the whole screen of the conference. Set the time to store recordings on the server. For example, on imind.com we keep videos for 30 days on a free plan forever on the most advanced one.

Do not interrupt the recording if the recorder dropped off. In Zoom, if the recorder leaves, the recording stops. In imind.com it continues.

Screen sharing and sharing multiple screens simultaneously

Show your screen instead of a video. Choose to show everything or just 1 application – to not show private data accidentally.

Make all video participants share screens at the same time. It helps to compare something. Users don’t have to stop one sharing and start another one. See it in action at imind.com.

Join a conference from a landline phone

For those in the countryside without an Internet connection. Dial a phone number on a wired telephone or your mobile and enter the conference with audio, without a video. SIP technology with Asterisk and FreeSWITCH servers powers this function.

Text chat

Send text messages and emoticons. React with emojis. Send pictures and documents. Go to a private chat with one participant. See a list of participants.

Document editing and signing

Share a document on the conference screen. Scroll through it together, make changes. Sign: upload your signature image or draw it manually. Convenient for remote contract signing in the pandemic.

Polls

Create polls with open and closed questions. View statistics. Make the collective decision-making process faster!

Webinars

In the broadcast mode, display a presentation full-screen to the audience, plus the presenter’s video. Add guest speakers’ videos. Record the whole session to share with participants afterward.

Everlasting rooms with custom links

Create a room and set a custom link to it like videoconference.com/dailymeeting. It’s convenient for regular meetings. Ask participants to add the link to bookmarks and enter at the agreed time each time.

User management

Assign administrators and delegate them the creation of rooms, addition, and deletion of users.

Security

One-time codes instead of passwords
Host approves guests before they enter the conference
See a picture of the guest before approving him
Encryption: we enable AES-256 encryption in WebRTC

Custom branding

Change color schemes, use your logo, change backgrounds to corporate images.

Speech-to-text and translation

User speech is recognized and shown on the screen. It can be in another language for translation.

Watch videos together online

Watch a movie or a sports game together with friends. Show an employee onboarding video to the new staff members. Chat by video, voice, and text.

Subscription plans

Free plans with basic functionality, advanced ones for pro and business users.

Industries we developed real-time communication tools for

Businesses – corporate communication tools
Telemedicine – HIPAA-compliant, with EMR, visit scheduling, and payments
E-learning – with whiteboards, LMS, teacher reviews, lesson booking, and payments
Entertainment: online cinemas, messengers
Fitness and training
Ecommerce and marketplaces – text chats, demonstrations of goods and services by live video calls

Devices we develop for

Web browsers
Chrome, Firefox, Safari, Opera, Edge – applications that require no download
Phones and tablets on iOS and Android
Native applications that you download from AppStore and Google Play
Desktop and laptop computers
Applications that you download and install
Smart TVs
Javascript applications for Samsung and LG, Kotlin apps for Android-based STBs, Swift apps for Apple TV
Virtual reality (VR) headsets
Meetings in virtual rooms

What technologies to choose

video chat development technologies — Technologies for video chat development

Basic technology to transmit video

Different technologies suit best for different tasks:

for video chats and conferences – WebRTC
for broadcasting to a big audience – HLS
for streaming to third-party products like YouTube and Facebook – RTMP
for calling to phone numbers – SIP
for connecting IP cameras – RTSP and RTP

Freelancer or an agency that does not specialize in video software may pick the technology they are best familiar with. It might be not the best for your tasks. In the worst case, you’ll have to throw the work away and redo it.

We know all the video technologies well. So we choose what’s best for your goal. If you need several of these features in one project – a mix of these technologies should be used.

WebRTC is the main technology almost always used for video conferences though. This is the technology for media streaming in real-time that works across all browsers and mobile devices people now use. Google, Apple, and Microsoft support and develop it.

WebRTC supports VP8, VP9 and H264 Constrained Baseline profile for video and OPUS, G.711 (PCMA and PCMU) for audio. It allows sending video up to 8,192 x 4,320 pixels – more than 4K. So the limitations to video stream quality on WebRTC are the internet speed and device power of the end-user.

WebRTC video quality is better than in SIP-based video chats, as a study of an Indonesian university shows. See Figure 6 on page 9: Video test results and read the reasoning below it.

Is a media server needed for video conferencing software development?

For video chats with 2-6 participants, we develop p2p solutions. You don’t pay for the heavy video traffic on your servers.

For video conferences with 7 and more people, we use media servers and bridges – Kurento is the 1st choice.

For “quick and dirty” prototypes we can integrate third-party solutions – ready implementations of video chats with media servers that allow slight customization.

p2p video chats

P2p means video and audio go directly from sender to receivers. Streams do not have to go to a powerful server first. Computers, smartphones, and tablets people use nowadays are powerful enough to handle 2-6 streams without delays.

Many businesses do not need more people in a video conference. Telemedicine usually means just 2 participants: a doctor and a patient. The development of a video chat with a media server is a mistake here. Businesses would have to pay for the traffic going through the server not receiving any benefit.

Video conferences with a media server

Users cannot handle sending more than 5 outgoing video streams without lags now. People’s computers, smartphones, and tablets are not powerful enough. While sending their own video, they accept incoming streams. So for more than 6 people in video chat – each sends just 1 outgoing stream to a media server. The media server is powerful enough to send this stream to each participant.

Kurento is our first choice of media servers now for 3 reasons:

It is reliable.

It was one of the first media servers to appear. So it gained the biggest community of developers. The more developers use technology the faster they solve issues, the quicker you find the answers to questions. This makes development quicker and easier, so you pay less for it.

Twilio bought Kurento technology for $8.5 million. Now Twilio provides the most reliable paid third-party video chat solution, based on our experience.

In 2021, other media servers have smaller developers’ and contributors’ communities or are backed by not-so-big companies, based on our experience and impression. They either are not as reliable as Kurento or do not allow developing that many functions.
It allows adding the widest number of custom features.

From screen sharing to face recognition and more – we have not faced any feature that our client would want, not possible to develop with Kurento. To give developers this possibility, the Kurento contributors had to develop each one separately and polish it to a well-working solution. Other media servers did not have that much time and resources to offer the same.
It is free.

Kurento is open-source. It means you may use it in your products legally for free. You don’t have to pay royalties to the technology owner.

We work with other media servers and bridges – when not that many functions are needed, or it is an existing product already using another media server:

We compare media servers and bridges regularly as all of them develop. Knowing your needs, we recommend the optimal choice.

Integration of third-party solutions

Third-party solutions are paid: you pay for minutes of usage. The development of a custom video chat is cheaper in the long run.

Their features are also limited to what their developers developed.

They are quicker to integrate and get a working prototype though. If you need to impress investors – we can integrate them. You get your app quicker and cheaper compared to the custom development.

However, to replace it with a custom video chat later – you’ll have to throw away the existing implementation and develop a custom one. So, you’ll pay twice for the video component.

We use these 3 -they are the most reliable ones based on our experience:

Twilio
Vonage (ex. OpenTok, ex. Tokbox)
OpenVidu – a product from the Kurento team

Write to us: we’ll help to pick optimal technologies for your video conference.

How much the development of a video conference costs

You’re here – means ready solutions sold as is to integrate into your existing software probably do not suit you and you need a custom one. The cost of a custom one depends on features and their complexity. So we can’t say the price before knowing these.

Take even the log in function as an example. A simple one is just through email and password. A complex one may have a login through Facebook, Google, and others. Each way requires extra effort to implement. So the cost may differ several times. And login is the simplest function for a few work hours. Imagine how much the added complexity will influence the cost of more complex functions. And you’d probably have quite a lot of functions.

Though we can give some indications.

✅ The simplest video chat component takes us 2-4 weeks and costs USD 8000. It is not a fully functioning system with login, subscriptions, booking, etc. – just the video chat with a text chat and screen sharing. You’d integrate it into your website or app and it would receive user info from there.

✅ The simplest fully functional video chat system takes us about 4-5 months and around USD 56 000. It is built from the ground up for one platform – either web or iOS or Android for example. Users register, pick a plan, and use the system.

✅ A big video conferencing solution development is an ongoing work. The 1st release takes about 7 months and USD 280 000.
Reach us, let’s discuss your project. After the 1st call, you get an approximate estimation.

Tags Android, desktop applications, iOS, mobile app development, VR, WebRTC

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Video surveillance, CCTV and video management software development with IP cameras

Post author By Polina Sapunova
Post date 13.07.2021
No Comments on Video surveillance, CCTV and video management software development with IP cameras

2000 IP cameras stream in our video surveillance system ipivis.com. It works at 450 US police departments, medical education, and child advocacy centers.

What features we develop for closed-circuit television (CCTV) software

Live video streaming from internet protocol (IP) cameras

Full HD quality – like most movies on YouTube and television. Watch it on a cinema size screen in an auditorium – students will see the details.

Video and audio are so in sync – speech pathologists work with these streams.

Pan-tilt-zoom – PTZ

Pan means the camera moves left and right to show the whole room.

Tilt means movement up and down.

Zoom – enlarge the view. E.g., from the whole room observation zoom to a sheet of paper on the table, to distinguish what a patient is writing.

To use PTZ, you need to buy PTZ-enabled IP cameras.

Video recording from digital IP cameras

Hit the record button when you want – or schedule recording. The stream will start recording automatically.

Set recurrence – e.g. daily, weekly. Decide for how long to repeat: end after N repetitions, endlessly, till a certain date. Set a starting position to record for PTZ cameras.

Save to any popular format, e.g. mp4. Convert.

Software-as-a-Service

No hardware equipment on site, except the IP cameras. We program all the functions that Digital Video Recorders (DVR) and Network Video Recorders (NVR) have. So video is processed and stored on a server. The servers are usually in the cloud – rented from providers like Amazon. However, the server can be in your local server room too.

Talking CCTV

Some IP cameras have speakers. So you can speak into your laptop mic and someone will hear you near the IP camera. Scare intruders away 🙂

Marks on video

Add comments on video while watching live or pre-recorded ones. Police officers mark confessions – and don’t have to re-watch the whole interrogation to find it again.

Closed-circuit digital photography (CCDP)

Take pictures with your IP cameras and save them.

Permission control

Video of people is sensitive content and subject to law regulations. For example, doctors must access interviews of their patients only and not their colleagues’. We develop software with as many user roles as you need. When a user logs in, he only has access to the content permitted to him.

Operate with hardware buttons

Push a real button on the wall to start streaming and recording. A sign “In Use” lights on. Stop the recording from your computer or the same button.

Movement and object recognition

Some IP cameras have movement detectors. Cameras may start recording or play some warning sound to scare away the intruders. Get an SMS or push notification about that.

Define “suspicious objects”, and the system will warn you when a camera spots one. We developed an app where military drones monitor land for opponent soldiers and cars this way. Neural networks teach the app to recognize them better and better. We recognize objects on live video with OpenCV.

Voice recognition

Type a word, and get all spots on the video marked where it sounds. Police officers search through interrogation recordings this way. For sound recognition, we use Amazon Transcribe, one of Amazon Web Services (AWS) products.

Create clips

Crop videos and save short clips. Delete unneeded parts.

Burn video on CDs. Yep, the police still use them in 2020.

Devices for which we develop VMS and video surveillance software

Devices we develop VMS and video surveillance software for

What IP camera to pick for a video surveillance application

Start with those that support ONVIF standards and program your software to support them.

Most IP cameras support the ONVIF standard. It’s a standard API – application programming interface. It’s a “language” a program can speak with the IP cameras.

Axis, Bosch, and Sony founded ONVIF. Most of their cameras should support it, but it is not guaranteed. Other manufacturers want their cameras to sell well – so they are interested in supporting ONVIF. However, not all the cameras are supported – the standard is voluntary.

If the camera does not support ONVIF, the support of such IP camera is programmed separately. So you can’t program once and for any camera.

So, a safe bet among IP camera brands is starting with Axis. Axis has the largest market share – your software will support more cameras than it would with any other choice. Many Bosch and Sony cameras will work too as they support ONVIF.

What industries we developed video surveillance and management software for

Police interviews

Forensic interviews

Clinical observation and recording

Military drone observation

Poker: recognition of chips in real casinos, recognition of cards in online casinos

How much it costs to develop video surveillance software

The initial working version of a video surveillance website takes us about 3 months, around USD 24,800. Add IP cameras, watch live streams, record.

However, custom software needs individual planning and estimation.

With ipivs.com we work on an ongoing basis – provide a dedicated team.

Send us a message through Request a quote. We’ll estimate the time and price for your project.

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Fora Soft Recognized As One of The Top 100 Fastest and Sustained Growing Companies by Clutch

Post author By Polina Sapunova
Post date 24.06.2021
No Comments on Fora Soft Recognized As One of The Top 100 Fastest and Sustained Growing Companies by Clutch

Fora Soft has been included in 2 Clutch Top-100 lists: 100 Fastest Growing Companies and 100 Sustained Growing Companies!

Clutch is an online review and rating platform based in Washington DC. They verify whether to name a company as one of the best in their field. This specific award is for companies that recorded the highest verified revenue change:

Fastest Growth – from 2019 to 2020
Sustained Growth – from 2017 to 2020

Fora Soft has grown by 58% from 2019 to 2020 and by 158% from 2017 to 2020. For that, we’d like to thank our clients and partners, as well as for ten 5-star reviews on Clutch. Kind thoughts help motivate our team, and we’re especially thankful for reviews like this:

“Their skills impressed us, they can do anything in a short amount of time.” – COO, INSTACLASS.

Quickly growing a business is never an easy task and is an achievement that most will never be able to see. This is why we also want to thank Clutch for setting up such an award and recognizing the important milestone we’ve reached as a company.

“Thank you very much, the Clutch team, for choosing us. We are always hesitant about asking clients for a review. They are busy businessmen and businesswomen, and it takes time and mental effort. That is why we do not have many. However, the ones we have are all 5-stars, and we’d like to thank our clients for these kind words and the highest esteem. Happy that these were enough to make it into the Clutch 100 list. We’ll keep up the good work and improve further.” – Nikolay Sapunov, CEO of Fora Soft.

If you want to learn more about our services, leave us a message and we’ll get back to you as soon as possible. And we also launched Instagram, where we also answer DMs, share company news, project portfolios, and chat with you 🙂

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Fora Soft – leading Mobile App Development Company 2020 at TopDevelopers.co

Post author By Polina Sapunova
Post date 27.05.2020
No Comments on Fora Soft – leading Mobile App Development Company 2020 at TopDevelopers.co

Top-Mobile-app-development-companies-February-2020

We have been featured in the February press release about Top Mobile App Developers by TopDevelopers.co, a review and ratings platform for B2B IT service providers.

We at Fora do not develop just any mobile app. Our narrow field has always been video and multimedia. Video and multimedia tech is the core of software products in these 6 areas: Real-time Communication, Online Education, Telemedicine, Video Surveillance, Internet TV and Augmented or Virtual Reality. We do not do anything except these 6.

That is why achievements like these make us especially proud. With this small focus we managed to compete with big generalists and get into the list of top mobile app development companies.

We have successfully completed 190 full-scale products. Carried out planning and wireframing for another 200. Our customers are from all over the world now. But the 1^st non-Russian client was Mitch from Video Interpretations LLC in 2010.

The company business was medical interpretations. Interpreters walked to hospitals by foot and translated patient’s complaints. In 2011 we completed the 1^st version of their video chat app. Since then, interpreters served from home. How many did they employ in one Wisconsin city? Now they have 700+ interpreters. In these 10 years, we worked on 3 product versions and numerous smaller improvements. We’ve been there when they started serving not only hospitals but also traffic police.

How cool it is to realize that we still work with Mitch! And he is one of those who kindly left us a review on TopDevelopers. “They are the best”, “Forasoft is a great company”, “one-stop-shop for all your startup needs”, these are some of the comments customers said on ForaSoft’s profile on TopDevelopers.co. We have more such exciting projects on our portfolio, come to have a look.

TopDevelopers.co is a directory and review platform for B2B IT service providers. We registered there because we liked their process. They seem to carefully filter good companies and then help clients to find them. The team of analysts at TopDevelopers.co vets the companies through stringent parameters which ensure that only the most competitive firms, businesses, enterprises, and entrepreneurs are filtered through their process. This helps the service seekers in getting a ready to use pool of companies from which they can choose the appropriate firm according to their need.

They are not only ones though. Just as I’ve been writing this post, we’d appeared in these rankings from DesignRush:

Thanks for reading! Contact us today with your app idea, let’s create a new big thing together!

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Clients Give Fora Soft 5/5 Stars!

Post author By Polina Sapunova
Post date 26.05.2020
2 Comments on Clients Give Fora Soft 5/5 Stars!

Say congrats, we’ve recently registered on Clutch, and have already collected 5 reviews, along with a 5-star rating! One of the feedbacks came from INSTACLASS, a digital tutoring company. They said they hired us for ‘everything,’ and that’s the best praise for us. They wanted us to handle the project from A–Z, and that’s exactly what we did. We developed their website, iOS app, and Android app. We also developed custom Real-Time Communication between students and tutors using WebRTC. See the full case in our portfolio.

We do not develop any software except video and multimedia software. But within that narrow specialization, we’re a full-service software development company. So no matter what your digital needs are, we will take care of them. That’s right — we develop products for mobile and web, as well as smart TVs and VR headsets. You also won’t need to search for different agencies to fulfill your design, branding, testing, installation and integration, and maintenance needs — here at Fora Soft, we do it all.

we create multimedia software — Fora Soft motto

We’ll even go so far as to say that we’re pioneers of video communication. After all, we created our first animated chat in 2005, the same year as YouTube was born. And we developed the first video chat for Russia’s largest social network, back before Facebook had even thought about video chatting.

We’re incredibly proud of the great products we’ve helped bring to life – thank you, dear clients, for your trust and these opportunities! And there’s nothing we enjoy more than hearing about how our work has driven success for you (and even helped to save human lives!). That’s why partnering with Clutch, a B2B reviews platform, made perfect sense to us. Clutch enables interested buyers to search for agencies and explore top solutions across various industries and locations.

Our profile on Clutch

We’re also happy to share that DesignRush, a platform that helps to find the best qualified agency for any project, has included us to the Top App Development Companies of 2020.

To see more of our past work, check out our profile on The Manifest, a business resource that helps buyers find the best firms, and Visual Objects, a creative portfolio site that connects businesses. We’ve gotten other glowing reviews from BrainCert, a cloud-based educational platform; Intelligent Video Solutions, a video technology company; and Fluencing, a language platform. We serve a wide range of clients, but with a narrow need – video and multimedia software. It’s a pity these listing websites do not have such a specific category, or we’d be high in that one ? If your need is video or multimedia software product – don’t wait, contact us now! We are happy to share know-hows gathered for 16 years, and with us you might get breaking ideas much faster than just googling.

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