Enable users to download a recording as video

[bigbluebutton-issue-import]

Originally reported on Google Code with ID 1215

In the playback window, provide a download link to download the files to playback the
slides + audio + chat.

This would be a self-contained directory with index.html to playback the files.

Reported by ffdixon on 2012-05-03 02:42:55

[bigbluebutton-issue-import]

Reported by ffdixon on 2013-08-27 12:21:22

[bigbluebutton-issue-import]

Gonna be a big plus for recording if user can get this download feature.

Reported by yq12@txstate.edu on 2013-08-27 15:00:09

[bigbluebutton-issue-import]

Hi!

Is there any news about this feature? it would be wonderful, mainly to be able of distributing
conferences to people that has a poor (or doesn't have at all) connection, which sadly
is a common circumnstance in some countries like ours (I'm writing from El Salvador).

Best regards,

Carlos

Reported by kadejo on 2014-06-19 14:11:26

[bigbluebutton-issue-import]

Hi Carlos,

No plans for 0.9.0, but we'll revisit this during the next release cycle.

Reported by ffdixon on 2014-06-19 14:24:48

[bigbluebutton-issue-import]

Ok! thank you very very much Fred! :)

Reported by kadejo on 2014-06-19 14:40:08

[bigbluebutton-issue-import]

yes, is necessary this feature.

Reported by r2galeano on 2014-09-16 14:51:55

[bigbluebutton-issue-import]

yes, that would be realy great feature and the last missing point on my list :)

Reported by q16marvin on 2015-02-27 13:49:46

[bigbluebutton-issue-import]

+1 though I think with Mobile playback becoming a must have, this would be best to be
downloadable as a single MP4 recording 

Reported by alspark2107 on 2015-03-17 11:43:14

[bigbluebutton-issue-import]

MP4 is a patent-encumbered format and each server administrator that deployed a BBB
server would need to buy a license.

Reported by capilkey on 2015-03-20 16:28:17

[bigbluebutton-issue-import]

Reported by ffdixon on 2015-06-21 14:03:29

[bigbluebutton-issue-import]

Issue 1952 has been merged into this issue.

Reported by ffdixon on 2015-06-21 14:05:26

[ywarnier]

+1 for an export feature. The current viewer is great, but there are some disconnected cases where a single file (webm is good) would be useful.

[mesuttalebi]

+1 for this feature, this is a must have feature, thanks

[gurunathan055]

+1 for this feature, this is a must have feature, Many thanks.!

[Alehandro231]

Hi colleagues!
The ability to download the recording of video conferences is very good and important.
Good idea to make automatic creation of the video with chat, Webcams, presentations, and display the "Download" button.
It is necessary to consider that video conferencing is chat, webcam, stream desktop, presentation. You can make a Converter for recording of a videoconference in the video. Select elements (chat, webcam, desktop, presentation) of a videoconference for a video file, to specify the time display elements of the conference in full screen.
For video files you can select the global video format, under a free license.

It's hard for me to write in English, I'm from Russia, knowledge of English is bad, I write through the translator, Sorry.

[ffdixon]

This feature is not planned for the current release. We're currently working on BigBlueButton 1.1-dev to release BigBlueButton 1.1-beta. We'll look at this feature in a future release.

[StuartPaterson]

Very keen on this feature to be added so I'm looking forward to it :)

Does anyone know of current method to do this or another provider who can do it? I'd seen previous forum posts about popcorn and ffmpeg but it sounds like a lot of time/work involved with those for the number of recordings I'm looking to export/convert.

Thanks
Stuart

[evsoldatkin]

It's the most important feature now, that blocks using BBB in most of the projects. Nearly each client requires the ability to edit record (cut some parts mostly). The ability to download record in any format that fits for editing would be a solution.

Best Regards

[boblmartens]

Any news on if this enhancement is going to be prioritized soon? It is important for a number of my users.

[createwebinar]

Here is the script that produces downloadable material for BigBlueButton. Working on 1.1 and 2.0 version https://github.com/createwebinar/bbb-download

[boblmartens]

Thanks!

[henriquebol]

@kirkjaa , I've tested here and it's recording all the slides with the audio. It does not record the notes. I have not tested with screen sharing yet. For my use is excellent, thank you for sharing @createwebinar !

[ffdixon]

Yes, our intent is to move the capability into the core, and do so in a way we can maintain it.

At the moment, we have the presentation playback format which is working well and has been actively maintained and enhanced by the core team.

We just announced that we'll be replacing the current whiteboard with tldraw, which will be a much more powerful whiteboard for teachers. This will broaden the range of whiteboard actions and require a refactoring of the recording pipeline to ensure we can record and playback all of tldraw's actions in the presentation playback format.

It may be that you have external tools for a while to provide .mp4 recordings, but you will see this capability move into the core in a future release.

[fthiery]

Thanks for the insight, this is good news.

FWIW i believe the cleanest way to achieve this on paper is using a proper NLE rendering engine such as GES (as implemented in https://github.com/plugorgau/bbb-render) instead of browser-based hacks, but in the end of the day as long as you support it, that'll be great !

[Jehan]

Having both options would be ideal: a 1-click-no-bother button + a more advanced GUI where we could choose what we show and when (presenter webcam, slide, non-presenter webcams…). Also having the ability to not-show non-presenters would be great. This could be useful when a session was conference/teaching, and we don't want the students to appear in the rendered video for various reasons (privacy, missing image authorization, etc.).

As for whether the option should be in the web GUI or as external tool, I guess it can be an external tool, but make sure it has a Linux version then. :P

[gustavotrott]

Also having the ability to not-show non-presenters would be great.

Hey @Jehan,
It will be possible soon via #14911.
Using the option webcamsOnlyForModerator only moderators webcams will be included in recordings!

(but then during the meeting viewers can't see other viewer's webcams as well)

[Jehan]

Ah cool @gustavotrott !

(but then during the meeting viewers can't see other viewer's webcams as well)

Ah well this is less fortunate though. There is probably some use case for this, but there are definitely use cases where you want the viewers to see everyone during the session. Typically: a classroom! Everyone sees each other, can interact and so on.

It's only that you might want to render a finale video and make it public, but not display everyone's face but the teacher.

Actually you might want to be able to render 2 videos (so the option needs to be per-export, not per-session): one that students could watch to review the session they participated to; and one for a public render.

[gustavotrott]

Cool! Do you mind to open a different issue where we can discuss this points @Jehan?
Your use case seems to be very common indeed!

[Jehan]

@gustavotrott Done in #14984.

[IcedQuinn]

@gustavotrott Done in #14984.

Don't forget to close the bounty :)

[cod3r0k]

Do we have any option for downloading a video? I didn't get the conclusion of discussions in this issue thread.

[antobinary]

Update - this is still in progress for BBB 2.6.

[antobinary]

Linking to the repository holding the code for bbb-presentation video: https://github.com/bigbluebutton/bbb-presentation-video

There is still work on packaging, 1-2 tldraw shapes still missing, etc but the work is now public and anyone who's eager to can start poking into it.
Thanks to @kepstin for creating this tool!

[fthiery]

Hi there; are you saying that https://github.com/bigbluebutton/bbb-presentation-video will be the official component for producing the video ? Is it based on a proper rendering (like https://github.com/plugorgau/bbb-render) or an offscreen chrome-based hack ?

[kepstin]

Is it based on a proper rendering (like https://github.com/plugorgau/bbb-render) or an offscreen chrome-based hack ?

This tool renders a video of (just) the presentation area of a bigbluebutton meeting directly by reading the recording "raw" events.xml file and presentation pdf files. It does not rely on hacks like requiring a recording to be processed to a different format first and using the output of that (like bbb-render) or doing a screen recording of a different recording format.

This tool is not a full recording format on its own, but will be used as part of a new bigbluebutton recording format that combines the presentation area, webcams, and desktop sharing into a single video file - I'm still working on preparing the code for that to be moved to the open source repository.

[antobinary]

Happy to share that recording as a video is now officially released, together with BBB 2.6.0! Great job to @kepstin and everyone else involved! 🎉

[cod3r0k]

Great!, Thank you!
But, I have the RC version of that, and it is not available when I update it to 2.6.0. Do we need to make anything changes in the installation configuration?

[cod3r0k]

Great!, Thank you!
But, I have the RC version of that, and it is not available when I update it to 2.6.0. Do we need to make anything changes in the installation configuration?

[ffdixon]

See

https://docs.bigbluebutton.org/2.6/administration/customize#install-additional-recording-processing-formats

and the new format is video. The package to install is bbb-process-video and the edits to bigbluebutton.yml should add process:video and publish:video as per the docs.

[fthiery]

See

https://docs.bigbluebutton.org/2.6/administration/customize#install-additional-recording-processing-formats

and the new format is video. The package to install is bbb-process-video and the edits to bigbluebutton.yml should add process:video and publish:video as per the docs.

Is it normal that the doc does not list the format yet in the In addition to the presentation format that is installed and enabled by default, there are several optional recording formats available for BigBlueButton: paragraph ?

[fthiery]

Oh, it just appeared, sorry for the noise !

[cod3r0k]

bbb-process-video

I change it like this:

steps:
  archive: "sanity"
  sanity: "captions"
  captions: "process:presentation"
  "process:presentation": "publish:presentation"
  'process:notes': 'publish:notes'
  'process:video': 'publish:video'

I want to install bbb-process-video manually and an error has occurred: E: Unable to locate package bbb-process-video.

I suggest that we can add some repo links and guide users who want to upgrade from 2.5 and elder versions to 2.6.

[cod3r0k]

See
https://docs.bigbluebutton.org/2.6/administration/customize#install-additional-recording-processing-formats
and the new format is video. The package to install is bbb-process-video and the edits to bigbluebutton.yml should add process:video and publish:video as per the docs.

Is it normal that the doc does not list the format yet in the In addition to the presentation format that is installed and enabled by default, there are several optional recording formats available for BigBlueButton: paragraph ?

It is in development. the document will be updated in the near future

[ffdixon]

We just took a look at the docs and they now correctly reference bbb-playback-video as the package to install.

[cod3r0k]

Can we add one further step for transferring to the spool step in scalelite ?