How Hipchat Video works

When you enable video chat on your Hipchat Data Center deployment, the server makes a one-time connection to video.hipchatserver.com  to register with the video service and establish a trust keypair. This keypair is stored and used by all Hipchat nodes in the cluster. The video service also checks that your Hipchat Data Center license is valid before saving the keypair. These keys are used to generate tokens that the clients use when joining in a video chat session.

When a Hipchat client starts a video chat, the client generates a token which is used to create the video call on the hipchat.me service. Once the session is established, the URL is then distributed to other participants, allowing their clients to connect to the video chat session on the hipchat.me bridge host, and begin a peer-to-peer call. Clients require access to the external service, however the Hipchat Data Center deployment does not.

Audio and video streams over UDP port 10000. TCP 443 is used as a fallback port for streaming, and to load user interface content and components. Because this service uses dynamically allocated IP addresses, we cannot guarantee specific IP ranges that the clients will connect to. If your organization cannot or does not want to use this external service, you can disable video chat for all users. 

Enable Hipchat Video 

When you enable video chat on your Hipchat Data Center deployment, the server makes a one-time connection to video.hipchatserver.com  to register with the video service and establish a trust keypair. Make sure that your Hipchat Data Center can access this address before you begin, and you can remove this access as soon as the keypair is saved.

To turn on and enable Hipchat Video:

1. Log in to the Hipchat Data Center administrator web UI. 
2. Click Settings in the left sidebar. 
3. Scroll down to the section labeled Video, and click Enabled.  

Disable all video chat 

If you don't want to use video chat or screen sharing, you can disable it for all users.

To turn off and disable Hipchat Video:

1. Log in to the Hipchat Data Center administrator web UI. 
2. Click  Settings in the left sidebar. 
3. Scroll down to the section labeled Video, and click Disabled.  

Enable or disable Hipchat Video from the command line

If you prefer to use the command line, you can connect to a Hipchat node and use the hipchat video command to enable or disable the feature.

Hipchat Data Center nodes in an Enterprise-scale cluster share a stored configuration, you only need to run the command on one node.

hipchat video --enable
 
hipchat video --disable

Server requirements

The server must be able to access video.hipchatserver.com over TCP 443 for one-time registration with the video service.  

Client requirements

To use Hipchat Video, all participants must be running version 4.26 or later of the Hipchat client. Video chat is not available in mobile clients.

Network and ports

The clients must have ports UDP 10000 and TCP 443 open. Additionally, the clients must be able to access to hipchat.me and cdn.jitsi.net in order to function correctly. Because the streaming service uses dynamically allocated IPs, we cannot provide a full list of video chat endpoints.

Network speed

Clients should be on a network with a bare minimum of 500kbps upstream and downstream for poor quality video.

For average quality, we recommend 1Mbps upstream and 5Mbps downstream, and for good quality (HD 720p) we recommend 5Mbps upstream and 10Mbps downstream.

Client-specific details

The Windows and Linux desktop clients require a graphics driver that provides OpenGL 2.1 or higher.

To use Hipchat Video in the web client, browsers must allow popups from your Hipchat site.  

Safari users will also be prompted to download and install the Temasys WebRTC Plugin before they can join a video chat. This plugin is required by Jitsi, the technology that powers Hipchat Video, as Safari does not have native WebRTC support. 

Hipchat Video Security

What is transmitted from Hipchat Data Center? 

• No user-provided credentials are transmitted. 
• The full name of the user, their ID (which is their email address) and their avatar URL are transmitted.
• The domain name of the Hipchat Data Center deployment is transmitted. 

How is information encrypted? 

• All signaling communications are encrypted using cipher suites restricted to AES 128 or 256 bit encryption. 
• Video and audio data streams are protected using the Secure Real-time Transport Protocol (SRTP). 
• AES CPC 128 bit encryption is used for RTP packet encryption. 
• HMAC SHA1 is used for packet authentication and verification.Encryption keys are generated by the streaming server by session.

• Media is encrypted between the client and the bridge host at hipchat.me.

Troubleshooting Hipchat Video

If users are reporting that they can't see the video button in their client, or they see an 'unable to join call' error, here are some things to try.

• Check that Video is enabled. Go to Settings > Video and check that Hipchat video is enabled. 
• If you see an error when you try to enable Hipchat Video, make sure that Hipchat Data Center can reach  https://video.hipchatserver.com . You can check this using the hipchat video --checkkeyserver CLI command.
• Check that the clients are using the Hipchat desktop client version 4.2.7 or later. Hipchat video is not available on any mobile clients.
• Ask the user to log out of their Hipchat client completely, then log back in. If they are using the macOS X client, they'll also need to hit Forget this account after they log out.

Additional Troubleshooting Resources

• Unable to Make Video Calls with Error "Sorry, you're not allowed to join this call" 

• Hipchat Video setup fails on servers behind a proxy

• Hipchat Video does not recognize Apple Cinema Display camera

• Hipchat SDK does not support audio/video calls on 64 bit chips mobile device