Review of the opus codec in a webRTC scenario for audio and speech communication

Abstract

The Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) – the open Internet standards-development body – considers the Opus codec as a highly versatile audio codec for interactive voice and music transmission. In this review we survey the dynamic functioning of the Opus codec within a Web Real-Time Communication (WebRTC) framework based on the Google Chrome browser. The codec behavior and the effectively utilized features during the active communication process are tested and analyzed under various testing conditions. In the experiments, we verify the Opus performance and interactivity. Relevant codec parameters can easily be adapted in application development. In addition, WebRTC framework-coded speech achieves a similar MOS assessment compared to stand-alone Opus coding.