VMware Horizon View 5.2 Feature Pack 2 released

Today, VMware released Horizon View 5.2 feature pack 2, which includes 2 new features:

  • Real-Time Audio-Video (also sometimes referred to as Multi Media Device Re-Direction MMRD)
  • Flash URL redirection

Real-Time Audio-Video (RTAV)

With the boom in social networking applications and media in general, there is a high demand for the ability to use multimedia devices on View desktops with popular applications such as Skype, Google talk and Cisco WebEx.

RTAV enables View desktop users to easily use webcam and audio-in devices for use in video and/or audio conferencing applications with good throughput for both audio and video.

How it works

  • The client captures video from the webcam and audio devices, encodes it, then sends the data via a Teradici lossy PCoIP channel.
  • The agent receives the data, decodes it, then presents it to two new virtual devices (virtual webcam, and virtual audio-in device). The audio-in device is a kernel mode driver. The virtual webcam is a user-mode driver

Limitations

  • RTAV only works when using the PCoIP display protocol. It does not work in RDP sessions.
  • Audio-in quality is restricted to 8 kHz, mono.
  • Works only on VMware Horizon View Client 5.4 or Windows.

Logs

  • Client-side logs (Windows 7)
    • Look for logs from component [ViewMMDevRedir]in C:\users\<user>\AppData\Local\VMware\VDM\logs\debug-2013-xx-yy-zzzzzz.txt
  • Agent-side logs (windows 7)
    • Look for logs from components [VmwVWebcam] and [ViewMMDevRedir] in %PROGRAMDATA%\VMware\VDM\logs\debug-2013-xx-yy-zzzzzz.txt

     

Flash URL Redirection

Flash URL Redirection” for live webcast video allows a customer to stream webcast video commonly used during a CEO broadcast to their virtual desktops.  With this new feature, a live webcast can be delivered to thousands of VDI client endpoints without negatively affecting the datacenter server and network.

When a VDI user clicks on a URL link for a live webcast from inside a company webpage, the URL is redirected to the client endpoint.  From the client endpoint, a local flash player opens up and contacts the Adobe Media Server directly to request the live webcast video.  The live webcast is then delivered using standard networking protocols directly to the client endpoint.  This feature will be supported for users connecting to their virtual desktops from both Windows and Linux thin clients.

Download

https://my.vmware.com/web/vmware/details?downloadGroup=VIEW-520-FP2&productId=320&rPId=3907

Installation and Administration

http://www.vmware.com/pdf/horizon-view/horizon-view-52-feature-pack-document.pdf

References

http://www.vmware.com/support/view52/doc/horizon-view-52-feature-pack-2-release-notes.html

http://blogs.vmware.com/euc/2013/07/3370.html

http://blogs.vmware.com/euc/2013/07/vmware-horizon-view-5-2-feature-pack-2.html

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