Microsoft has announced the general availability (GA) of Multimedia Redirection (MMR) for call redirection in Azure Virtual Desktop, Windows 365, and Microsoft Dev Box.
MMR allows organisations and users to offload multimedia processing, including video playback and calls, to the user’s local operating system, resulting in faster processing and rendering, ultimately leading to greater user experience through speed and quality.
While MMR for video playback has been available for some time, the call redirection feature, previously in preview, is now also generally available.
Multimedia Redirection works in two ways:
Video playback redirection:
The Multimedia Redirection service and browser extension for Chrome and Edge browsers optimises video playback experience for web pages with embedded videos like YouTube and Facebook. The browser in the remote sessions fetches the video content, but instead of the video rendering within the AVD session, the video data is sent to the local machine where it is then decoded and rendered, leveraging the users local operating system, as well as the machines CPU, GPU, RAM, and Network.
This is a similar technology to Citrix’s Browser Content Redirection, which has been a game changer for user experience within a Citrix VDI.
The top image indicates Multimedia rendered in AVD Session.
The image underneath shows multimedia rendered on local endpoint.
Call Redirection
The Multimedia Redirection Call Redirection service (previously in Preview) optimises audio calls for WebRTC-based calling apps. MMR service offloads WebRTC audio data to the users’ endpoint, which reduces latency, and improves call quality.
The connection happens between the endpoint and the telephony app server, where WebRTC calls are offloaded from a remote session to a local device. After the connection is established, call quality becomes dependant on the web page or app providers, just as it would with a non-redirected call.
In conclusion, it’s great to see Microsoft taking necessary steps to improve the user experience within their AVD/Windows365/Dev box solutions. Being able to offer audio and video offloading capabilities to our customers has always been a challenge outside of Citrix. We believe there are further improvements to be made in this space, Citrix are still light years ahead of anyone in terms of multimedia redirection.
If you have any questions, or would like to speak to Coffee Cup regarding your Virtual Desktop Multimedia requirements, please reach out to us [email protected]