Microsoft’s upcoming Skype for Web service will use the new WebRTC standard so it works in all modern browsers — but not right away: Early users will have to download a plugin that’s only available on Mac and Windows.

That’s something Microsoft has already done for years in its Lync universal communications product. The reason for it lies in the complexity of building real-time communications, and the often-complex way web standards are developed, approved and built into browsers, especially the audio and video formats they use (known as codecs).

According to Bernard Aboba, the principle architect working on Skype, the plugin is a miniature version of Skype. “For audio it uses much of the same technology as the mandatory WebRTC codecs. It has a technology called forward error correction so it’s robust to packet loss and it can handle a wide range of video bandwidth. On the video side, it relies on the H.264 codec. It also supports simulcast and scalable video codecs, which allow video to scale all the way from a mobile device up to a large desktop system with a large screen, and have all those devices participate in a call at once.”

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