The Amazon Chime SDK now offers high-definition WebRTC sessions with support for 1080p webcam video and 4K screen share. Developers can choose video encoding bitrates up to 2.5Mbps, frame rates up to 30fps, and the codec, including new options VP9, AV1, and scalable video coding (SVC).

The higher-resolution video helps provide more visual clarity with a sharper image and finer detail. For webcam video, this helps capture the natural texture of a person’s appearance, and for screen share, this helps improve the readability of text. The new codecs offer improved compression, delivering better quality video at the same bitrate. When enabled, SVC encodes video in multiple spatial (resolution) and temporal (frame rate) layers. For example, an encoded video stream may include 1080p, 540p and 270p spatial layers and 30fps, 15fps, and 7.5fps temporal layers. The Amazon Chime SDK automatically uses any available layers to optimize the video quality for each viewer based on their network bandwidth.

High-definition WebRTC sessions are available in all AWS Regions where Amazon Chime SDK WebRTC sessions are available. To learn more, review the following resources:

• Amazon Chime SDK website
• Amazon Chime SDK Developer Guide
• Amazon Chime SDK API Reference