Recording export/rendering contents options (and actually even current recording links)

[Jehan]

Describe the bug

This is about recording export options. Even basic recording export does not exist yet, but I was still advised to open this report by @gustavotrott. So here it is.

Basically there are several use cases for the video exports, and possibly even requirements depending on needs. I would say there are 2 main categories of exports:

1. The just-export-anything case, where you want a no-brainer export button, with the software doing reasonable editing for you (showing prominently the slide in big for a reasonable amount of time after you change page, showing a webcam when someone speaks, possibly showing both half-half; still showing the chat and all other video inputs in small in a corner, etc.). This is a one-click button.
2. The I-want-to-edit case, where you could choose what to show and when. Note that a good idea would be to pre-fill with the automatic editing of what would the video look like in case 1. So you start with maybe useful automatic choices and do the minimal changes to make your video very good.

Now there could be additional options about what/who to show which could be useful in both these cases. Typically you could want to not show non-presenters and/or non-moderators (not even as very small in the corner). Or only when they are speaking (or maybe not even when they are speaking, keeping possibly only the audio, not the image).

The reasons could be things like privacy, maybe because you want to publish a video but you don't have the image rights for the viewers (and don't care to ask, or maybe some refuse). Maybe also you don't think that showing the viewers brings anything to the video. And so on. For instance, I could see this useful in conferences or remote courses where you might want to eventually publish your lesson online but without showing students' faces and private surroundings. I work with someone who does remote university courses (and I often assist a bit) with 1 to 2 dozen students and publishing the video without the students faces would be interesting.

Alternatively another option to blur all non-moderator webcams would be cool (though it would not replace the other option; I could definitely see interest in both options: sometimes you would want not showing anything at all, sometimes just blurring to prevent recognition could be enough).

Note that the options I talk about are different from #14911 where, as I understand, this is a session option where even during the session, viewers are meant not to see each others. I can see the use case for this, but in the use case I talked about for instance, you want people to see and be able to easily interact with each other (if needed) during the session. It's really an export-only feature.

Actually even the same session, you might want to be able to export it in 2 versions: a full versions with everyone showing, such video could be given to the students themselves if they want to review the course; a version with only moderators showing which could be eventually published publicly. So it's really an export feature, not something attached to the session itself.

To Reproduce
Steps to reproduce the behavior:

1. Go to some "Export Video" section for a finished bbb session with recording.
2. There could be checkboxes such as:

• only show moderators webcams
• only show talking people webcams
• blur non-moderators webcams
• Other privacy/contents options?… (maybe even the audio, would anyone want to distort non-moderators audio in cases where you absolutely want to make sure nobody is recognized? What about the nicknames used in chat, should there be options to replace them by generic nicknames?)

3. Check what's relevant.
4. Click "Render" button, then wait for the platform to generate the video.

Note that there could be an alternative "Edit" button where instead of the rendering to start, you'd be transported to an advanced video editing UI. The options you chose would therefore only work as default proposal editing, then you can start editing in details from there.

Note that in the spirit of incremental improvement, this advanced editing UI could happen in a much further version. An initial release of video export could just contain the basic options (actually even a first-first release could just propose a one-click button, no option whatsoever, then some privacy options could be added in a second release, then later advanced editing UI).

Expected behavior

Being able to control what will be contained in a rendered recording. These are separate options from what is visible during the session itself.

Actual behavior

Not much since we don't have rendering buttons.

This being said, such options could be useful for the recording links (not rendered videos) as they already exist. Currently non-rendered videos also contain everything and everyone which might make them unsuitable for publishing such links in a lot of cases. So even in current situations, such options could be useful already.

Desktop (please complete the following information):
These info are not too relevant, since that should work whatever your OS/browser in future versions. But for completeness, that's what I use:

• OS: Linux, Fedora, Debian…
• Browser: Firefox
• Version: unsure (whatever hosts GNOME)

Smartphone (please complete the following information):
Same, it should work everywhere, though if it doesn't, I only care about it working on desktop browsers. 😛

Additional context

There are surely other context, but the ones I care the most are when you want to be able to publish recording without having everyone consents for their image (or even if you don't even want to bother asking for people's consent, therefore just removing their images).

[gustavotrott]

Hello @Jehan,
as you said, currently bbb doesn't have the export as video file option.

so I'm thinking about add some way to show recording only with moderator webcam in the current recordings format.
and once we have the "export to video file" this option will be available already.

@GuiLeme will take a look in some options to achieve it next days.

[cod3r0k]

Do we have any solution for downloading video links (including presentation and screen share)?

[ffdixon]

There is work underway to add an .mp4 recording format to BigBlueButton. See #1969

[stale]

This issue has been automatically marked as stale because it has not had recent activity. It will be closed if no further activity occurs. Thank you for your contributions.

[Jehan]

Oups. How can we reopen this report please? The stale bot closed it. Thanks!

[stale]

This issue has been automatically marked as stale because it has not had recent activity. It will be closed if no further activity occurs. Thank you for your contributions.

[Jehan]

Adding a comment for the stale bot.