Push-to-talk in video/voice conferencing

[BloodyIron]

Whether it's Freeswitch or Jitsi (AFAIK Freeswitch is on the way out), having Push-To-Talk for channel chat would be seriously appreciated! Right now if you have a channel with a whole lot of people wanting to talk, it can turn into a really big mess.

Also, this PTT feature would need to work when the "app" doesn't have focus. I'm thinking this may not work unless the "desktop" version is used, but I'm not 100% up to speed with browser features like this.

It might also be a good idea to get a keyboard bind to toggle self-muting of your own microphone. Let's say, if your fat cat knocks a glass of water all over your desk, oh noes!

[t3chguy]

Also, this PTT feature would need to work when the "app" doesn't have focus. I'm thinking this may not work unless the "desktop" version is used, but I'm not 100% up to speed with browser features like this.

yes this would not be possible in-browser, Discord has the same issue

[BloodyIron]

@t3chguy yeah, I wasn't sure if that particular detail was "solved" by browser devs since I last looked at it. ;)

[t3chguy]

as far as I'm aware its done by intent, so web applications can't behave like keyloggers

[BloodyIron]

@t3chguy that... is actually completely reasonable! I hadn't thought of that. Please don't keylog me Facebook! ;D

[turt2live]

ftr this is listed in the voip metabug: https://github.com/vector-im/riot-web/issues/3025#issuecomment-287929855

[BloodyIron]

@turt2live when I found that thread, I wasn't sure if the PTT facet would get lost in the size of that thread. :( So, I opened this one.

Along the lines of the reason why we have individual issues, instead of just one big meta issue for every single thing people want. ;P

[turt2live]

I'm not declaring a duplicate, just providing a reference so people can find it more easily.

[BloodyIron]

@turt2live you monster! :O

[josephtocci]

Nextel PTT (Always online, push notifications with audio, Example: Zello)
Remember this? I was too young to have a phone, but my parents each had one and the PTT was far above everything else at the time. There were no smartphones at the time. It was faster than calling, and usually the message got through. These days texting won out, partially because if you put your phone down and came back to it you could just read it. PTT you might miss. The other reason texting won out is because you don't necessarily want the person you are talking too IRL to hear what the person on the phone said. There are pros and cons to this method. There is a decent following on Zello which does this. In fact I know someone who uses Zello with all his camping buddies.

Mumble PTT (Must be running, no push notifications for audio, login/join/accept call to use and hear PTT)
This one is more what people will do now. Especially gamers. Even my friend on Zello would probably use this instead. The way he uses Zello is to schedule an hour with everybody, and everybody goes online at the same time and talks. There is no reason to use the always on Zello if you are just going to chatroom with voice. Basically you just mute the microphone, and have a keyboard button to hold down to unmute. (Headphone button on phone) If someone is trying to be quiet IRL and can't get around it, he can plug his headphones in to hear, and type in the room instead of talking. Optionally a text-to-speech thing would be cool, but that is a separate subject.

My thoughts
I think the Mumble type PTT is what people actually seem to need. You set up a room for the game, and everyone logs on and plays the game. (Not necessarily games but games is the common example) Text is king unless you are doing something with your hands, if you are doing something with your hands, set up a call. It's not complicated.

Forward
So I recommend a keyboard button for desktop and headphone button for phone would be excellent shortcuts to temporarily unmute the microphone while it is held down for both native calls and jitsi conferencing. I would recommend Riot to certain people if it had that.

[t3chguy]

headphone button for phone

/me points at vector-im/riot-ios and vector-im/riot-android

[josephtocci]

Android issue created:
element-hq/riot-android#1905

iPhone issue created:
element-hq/element-ios#1736

[josephtocci]

TL/DR, turn the camera on when you press the unmute button, unless you want an audio only conference call. Would reduce load

You could even make the same button to unmute the microphone to turn on the camera. I don't necessarily want my camera on all the time, but when I'm talking I want it on. So have the camera on but don't send anything to matrix unless I hold down the PTT button to unmute the microphone. You could make this the default for conference calls and not for 1-on-1. Does that solve the infrastructure problem? Maybe sometime in the future add the Nextel PTT, it is awesome, but if you say it's too much for now then ok.

It reduces load, and you can have an audio PTT only/no camera conference option for gamers, and a full conference call option for people that have 20 eyes to look at 20 different camera feeds for their friends. lol. Probably the best option considering infrastructure, and nothing has to change server side because load should go down even if you add a healthy amount of users.