Simply start a call in your 3 rd-party application, and RTAV should just work.Įnding a call stops the capturing from the audio/video device. Any devices forwarded via USB to the guest are not available for use by RTAV.Īt your guest, you should see a “VMware Virtual Microphone” and a “VMware Virtual Webcam” available as options in your 3 rd-party applications. You should not forward the audio or video devices using USB – if the devices are left local to the client, then RTAV can use them. RTAV functionality is now enabled and activated by default. The optional RTAV component can be installed via the Remote Experience Agent, so make sure this is installed! These can be downloaded from the Horizon View Downloads page. In addition on your guest virtual machine, you need a Horizon View 5.2 (or later) View Agent along with the VMware Horizon View 5.2 Feature Pack 2.
You will need the Horizon View Windows Client 5.4 or the new Windows Client v2.2 or later. This feature currently works only on Windows clients, although other clients will add support for RTAV in due course. Notethat RTAV only works when using the PCoIP protocol.
Instead the devices are left local to the client, and audio/images are pulled from the local devices. Real-Time Audio-Video (RTAV) does not forward audio and webcam devices using USB. More information about USB forwarding can be seen in USB Device Redirection in VMware Horizon View 5.1 and 5.2. Again, the audio quality then greatly depends on network/load. So using a USB headset in a VoIP type application required the entire headset to be forwarded to the guest.
However you can’t split a USB audio device such that the audio-out functionality remains local to the client and the audio-in is redirected. Audio-in using analog-style devices (e.g., with 3.5mm audio jacks) were not supported at all.Īudio-out (for example, playing music in the guest desktop, but hearing the audio from the local client) via PCoIP audio redirection has been supported in Horizon View for some time, and this gives a much higher audio quality than using USB redirection.
Some improvements were made recently in this area which will help some devices – see the Knowledge Base article How to improve audio quality when using USB headsets or speakers with a View desktop. The quality of audio using USB redirection (in or out) depends greatly on network conditions and guest load. Tests in our lab show that many cameras consume around 60 to 80Mbps! This is bandwidth consumption which obviously does not scale in a VDI environment.Īudio-in functionality that has been supported in Horizon View was always done via USB redirection. For example, most webcams send uncompressed images over USB at a high frame rate. It has not been feasible to support webcam functionality via USB redirection – mainly due to the bandwidth that webcams consume. There is also a short YouTube video covering similar topics available here. This blog gives a quick overview of the Real-Time Audio-Video functionality, along with some quick tips and guidance on its use and configuration.
Analog audio-in devices are also supported! This functionality enables the support of webcams and audio-in and audio-out in Horizon View, without the need to use USB redirection. It is therefore with great pleasure that we are able to bring you Real-Time Audio-Video functionality. Webcam support in VMware Horizon View is a feature that has frequently been requested.
By Peter Brown, Senior R&D Manager, and Tarique Chowdhury, Software Engineer