Frequently Asked Questions - Voice and Video Conferencing

Is there any limit on number of participants in a conference?
No, there are absolutely no limits on number of participants in a group call. A conference rooms is fundamentally a mesibo group. You can have any number of members in the group. Hence, you can have unlimited number of participants with any call duration.
How much does it cost to use mesibo conferencing ?

If you’re using mesibo on-premise, it’s entirely free. Simply download and run the Mesibo conferencing platform on your servers.

On the cloud, mesibo charges only for the bandwidth consumed by all your participants, with no restrictions on the number of participants. Conferencing bandwidth depends on the number of participants and the video resolution used.

As a rough estimate, an HD (720p) call for 100 minutes typically consumes around 1 GB of bandwidth per participant, while a non-HD call for 250 minutes consumes around 1 GB per participant. While bandwidth usage may vary, this information allows you to approximate bandwidth charges.

For instance, in a conference with 1 HD participant and 4 non-HD participants, the estimated bandwidth usage for an hour-long call would be approximately 1.5 GB, translating to a cost of approximately $1.5 for that conference call.

How to only listen to a participant's audio ?

If you would like to only listen to a participant, and not view their video, you need to make an audio-only call while subscribing to their stream. To make an audio-only call, pass the audio parameter as true and video parameter as false, in the call method.

Refer to this example in Android: Audio Only Call in Android

How can I share multiple screens simultaneously?
You can simultaneously publish as many streams as you like. To publish multiple screens at once, you need to create a Participant object for each screen with a different sid and then use the call method to publish it. Refer to this example in Android: Publish Multiple Streams
How can I change my video device in a conference?

You can change the video device from which you are publishing the video, by changing the video source of the Participant Object. For example, to share screen instead of streaming from the camera, set the video source to screen.

Refer to the documentation: Set the Video Source

How can I change my audio device in a conference?
You can change the audio device from which you are publishing your audio stream, using the setAudioDevice method.
How to play sound in a conference?
You can use the utility function playInCallSound to play a sound when a participant joins or leaves the conference call, etc.
How to mute all members in a conference?
How to kick-out members from a conference?

To remove members from a conference room, you need to remove those mesibo users from the mesibo group using the backend API.

Refer to Add or Remove Group Members in the backend API documentation.

Can I schedule a conference meeting?
How can I overlay a logo/watermark or filter over a video?
Can I get raw video or voice data and process it?
Presently, mesibo does not provide an API to access raw video or voice data.
How to download the source code for Android/iOS/Javascript Conferencing App?
The entire source code for the Conferencing apps for Android, iOS and Javascript is available on < a href = “https://github.com/mesibo/conferencing">Github. Refer to the Open-Source Conferencing App Tutorial to learn more about building and running the apps.
Are there any time limits to the group call on the demo app?
Since these are demo apps, there are fair usage limits on the duration of the group call. However, you can download the entire source code for this app from mesibo GitHub repo and configure it using your own mesibo app token to enjoy unlimited call duration.
Can I customize the UI in Conferencing Demo Apps?
You can download the source code for conferencing demo apps and modify anything you wish including the UI without any restrictions.
How to build a Zoom like Video conferencing app?
mesibo provides you with everything to build a robust and scalable conferencing. In a Zoom like video conferencing app, you will be having group calls, where all users are allowed to publish and subscribed to streams. You can configure necessary permissions in a group call, by configuring group level and participant level permissions. To make building such apps easier for you, we have built Open-Source Zoom like conferencing demo apps for Android, iOS and Javascript. You can readily use the source code and quickly get started. Refer to Mesibo Voice & Video Conferencing and Streaming API for Android, iOS & Javascript to learn more.
How to build a voice chat app like Clubhouse?

Mesibo Conferencing and Streaming Platform enables you to build applications at scale for teleconferencing, virtual events, webinars, on-demand streaming, social interaction, and more. Whether you are building a conferencing app like Zoom or a social voice-chat app like Clubhouse, we’ve got you covered.

With mesibo Voice and Video conferencing APIs you can make high-quality audio only group calls, which can be used to build voice chat apps like Clubhouse.

See Mesibo Voice & Video Conferencing and Streaming API for Android, iOS & Javascript to learn more.

How to build a webinar?
A webinar generally involves one or more speakers publishing, while all other participants are viewing. You can achieve this by setting the ‘canpublish’ permission to speakers, while others can only have ‘cansubscribe’ permission. You can have unlimited number of speakers and viewers.
Do you support live Group Chat?
Yes, you can easily integrate live group chat in your conferencing apps. You need to create a mesibo group and add members to hold a conference. The same members will be able to send and receive messages to the group. You can control who can send and receive messages by setting the appropriate permissions.
Can I use a different login method than in conferencing demo app?
Absolutely. For the demo conferencing app, we have used phone-based authentication. It is just an example and we do not recommend or enforce any particular login method. You can customize it to have any other authentication mechanism. You could also modify the source code for the Conferencing App.
Yes, if you chose to implement it. You can parse an invite link and then add the user as a member to the mesibo group linked with that conference room. See Create Room and Add Participants.
How to select the camera from which a user is streaming from on mobile?
In addition to front and rear cameras, these days mobile devices have additional cameras. You can stream from the required camera source, by setting the right video source using setVideoSource. Refer to Set the Video Source - Android and Set the Video Source - iOS
Can I host the Conferencing Admin API on my own server?

Administrative APIs reside on your server and perform various administrative tasks such as log-in, creating a room, entering a room, etc. Your app connects to your server using these APIs. In turn, your server invokes the mesibo Group & User Management APIs internally to perform the required operation

In the demo apps, we have used the Admin API which is already hosted and configured at https://app.mesibo.com/conf/api.php so that you can quickly play with the apps without worrying about the backend. Now in this part, we will describe how to host the Admin API backend on your servers/infrastructure and having complete control over your conference participants, the resolution of the room, who are allowed to publish or view streams in the conference, etc

Does the talk detection feature have noise cancellation?
Yes, you can detect active speakers in real-time with high-quality 48khz audio with noise cancellation.