videojs-record

Video.js Record

Video.js plugin for recording audio/video/image files.

Installation

Use bower (bower install videojs-record) or npm (npm install videojs-record) to install the plugin or download the library and dependencies elsewhere.

Since v1.0 this plugin is compatible with video.js 5.0 and newer. If you want to use this plugin with an older video.js 4.x version, check the archived releases for a 0.9.x or older release.

Take a look at the changelog when upgrading from a previous version of videojs-record.

Dependencies

The plugin has the following mandatory dependency:

• Video.js - HTML5 media player that provides the user interface.

When recording audio and/or video you also need:

• RecordRTC.js - Adds support for audio/video/GIF recording.

And when recording audio-only, the following dependencies are also required:

• wavesurfer.js - Provides a navigable waveform for audio files. Comes with a microphone plugin used for realtime visualization of the microphone audio signal.
• videojs-wavesurfer - Transforms Video.js into an audio-player.

Optional dependencies when using other audio libraries:

• libvorbis.js - Converts PCM audio data to compressed Ogg Vorbis audio, resulting a smaller audio files with similar quality.
• lamejs - Converts PCM audio data to compressed MP3 audio.
• opus-recorder - Converts the output of Web Audio API nodes as Opus and exports it into an Ogg container.
• recorder.js - A plugin for recording the PCM output of Web Audio API nodes.

Usage

Start by including the video.js stylesheet and library:

<link href="//vjs.zencdn.net/5.8.0/video-js.css" rel="stylesheet">
<script src="//vjs.zencdn.net/5.8.0/video.min.js"></script>

If you're going to record audio and/or video you need to include RecordRTC as well:

<script src="//cdn.webrtc-experiment.com/RecordRTC.js"></script>

The videojs-record plugin automatically registers itself when the script is included on the page:

<script src="videojs.record.js"></script>

Add the extra stylesheet for the plugin that includes a custom font with additional icons:

<link href="videojs.record.css" rel="stylesheet">

Audio/video/image

When recording either audio/video, video-only, animated GIF or a single image, include a video element:

<video id="myVideo" class="video-js vjs-default-skin"></video>

Check out the examples:

• audio/video (demo / source)
• video-only (demo / source)
• image (demo / source)
• animated GIF (demo / source)

Note that recording both audio and video into a single WebM file is currently only supported in Mozilla Firefox >= 29 and Chrome >= 49. In older versions of the Chrome browser two separate Blob objects are created: one for audio and one for video.

Audio-only

When recording audio-only, also include the wavesurfer.js library and the videojs-wavesurfer and microphone plugins. Make sure to place this before the videojs.record.js script.

<script src="//katspaugh.github.io/wavesurfer.js/dist/wavesurfer.min.js"></script>
<script src="//katspaugh.github.io/wavesurfer.js/dist/plugin/wavesurfer.microphone.min.js"></script>
<script src="videojs.wavesurfer.js"></script>

And define an audio element:

<audio id="myAudio" class="video-js vjs-default-skin"></audio>

Check out the full audio-only example (demo / source).

There is also support for additional audio libraries that allows you to record audio with codecs like Ogg Vorbis, MP3 and Opus.

Options

Configure the player using the video.js options, and enable the plugin by adding a record configuration to plugins. For example:

var player = videojs("myVideo",
{
    // video.js options
    controls: true,
    loop: false,
    width: 320,
    height: 240,
    plugins: {
        // videojs-record plugin options
        record: {
            image: false,
            audio: false,
            video: true,
            maxLength: 5,
            debug: true
        }
    }
});

The available options for this plugin are:

Option	Type	Default	Description
image	boolean or object	false	Create single snapshot image.
audio	boolean or object	false	Include audio in the recorded clip.
video	boolean or object	false	Include video in the recorded clip.
animation	boolean or object	false	Animated GIF.
debug	boolean	false	Enables console log messages during recording for debugging purposes.
maxLength	float	10	Maximum length of the recorded clip.
frameWidth	float	320	Width of the recorded video frames. Use media constraints to change the camera resolution width.
frameHeight	float	240	Height of the recorded video frames. Use media constraints to change the camera height.
audioEngine	string	recordrtc	Audio recording library to use. Legal values are recordrtc, libvorbis.js, lamejs, opus-recorder and recorder.js.
audioRecorderType	string or function	auto	Audio recorder type to use. This allows you to specify an alternative recorder class, e.g. StereoAudioRecorder. Defaults to auto which let's recordrtc specify the best available recorder type. Currently this setting is only used with the 'recordrtc' audioEngine.
audioBufferSize	float	4096	The size of the audio buffer (in sample-frames per second). Legal values: 0, 256, 512, 1024, 2048, 4096, 8192 and 16384.
audioSampleRate	float	44100	The audio sample rate (in sample-frames per second) at which the AudioContext handles audio. Legal values are in the range of 22050 to 96000.
audioChannels	float	2	Number of audio channels. Using a single channel results in a smaller filesize.
audioWorkerURL	string	''	URL for the audio worker, for example: /opus-recorder/oggopusEncoder.js. Currently only used for opus-recorder and lamejs.
videoRecorderType	string or function	auto	Video recorder type to use. This allows you to specify an alternative recorder class, e.g. WhammyRecorder. Defaults to auto which let's recordrtc specify the best available recorder type.
animationFrameRate	float	200	Frame rate for animated GIF (in frames per second).
animationQuality	float	10	Sets quality of color quantization (conversion of images to the maximum 256 colors allowed by the GIF specification). Lower values (minimum = 1) produce better colors, but slow processing significantly. The default produces good color mapping at reasonable speeds. Values greater than 20 do not yield significant improvements in speed.

Methods

Methods for this plugin documented below are available on the recorder object of the video.js player instance. For example:

player.recorder.destroy();

Method	Description
isRecording	Returns a boolean indicating whether recording is active or not.
getRecordType	Get recorder type as string. Either image_only, animation, audio_only, video_only or audio_video.
destroy	Destroys the recorder instance and children (including the video.js player).
stopDevice	Stop the recording and the active audio and/or video device(s).
getDevice	Start the audio and/or video device(s).
enumerateDevices	Get async list of media input and output devices available on the system.

Events

Plugin events that are available on the video.js player instance. For example:

player.on('startRecord', function()
{
    console.log('started recording!');
});

Event	Description
deviceReady	The webcam and/or microphone is ready to use.
deviceError	User doesn't allow the browser to access the webcam and/or microphone. Check player.deviceErrorCode for the specific error code.
startRecord	User pressed the record or camera button to start recording.
stopRecord	User pressed the stop button to stop recording.
finishRecord	The recorded stream or image is available. Check the player.recordedData object for the recorded data.
enumerateReady	enumerateDevices returned the devices successfully. The list of devices is stored in the player.recorder.devices array.
enumerateError	An error occured after calling enumerateDevices. Check the player.enumerateErrorCode property for an description of the error.

Media Constraints

Media stream constraints allow you to specify the types of media to request, along with any requirements for each type.

The following example shows how to change the camera resolution to 1280 by 720 pixels:

var player = videojs("myVideo",
{
    controls: true,
    loop: false,
    // dimensions of video.js player
    width: 1280,
    height: 720,
    plugins: {
        record: {
            maxLength: 5,
            debug: true,
            audio: false,
            video: {
                // video constraints: set resolution of camera
                mandatory: {
                    minWidth: 1280,
                    minHeight: 720,
                },
            },
            // dimensions of captured video frames
            frameWidth: 1280,
            frameHeight: 720
        }
    }
});

Get recorded data

Listen for the finishRecord event and obtain the recorded data from the player.recordedData object for further processing:

// user completed recording and stream is available
player.on('finishRecord', function()
{
    // the recordedData object contains the stream data that
    // can be downloaded by the user, stored on server etc.
    console.log('finished recording: ', player.recordedData);
});

Note that in the Chrome browser player.recordedData returns an object with audio and video properties when recording both audio/video. In Firefox it returns a single WebM Blob object containing both audio and video.

Check the jquery.fileupload or Fine Uploader examples on how to upload the data to a server.

Controlling the input and output devices

Use enumerateDevices to get a list of the available input and output devices on the user's system, e.g. FaceTime HD-camera, default (Built-in microphone) etc.

Check out the enumerateDevices example (demo / source).

Customizing controls

To disable and hide specific controls, use the video.js controlBar option:

controlBar: {
    // hide volume and fullscreen controls
    volumeMenuButton: false,
    fullscreenToggle: false
},

Other audio libraries

RecordRTC is the default recording library but there is also support for other audio libraries.

libvorbis.js

Microphone recordings can result in large audio files, especially when there is no native support for other audio formats (.ogg for example) in the browser (like Chrome).

libvorbis.js provides a Javascript implementation of a PCM to Ogg Vorbis encoder and you can choose to use this instead of RecordRTC. libvorbis.js is currently only supported when recording audio-only.

Include the libvorbis.js library (instead of RecordRTC.js) and place it before any other scripts:

<script src="/path/to/libvorbis.min.js"></script>

Also include the videojs.record.libvorbis.js plugin:

<script src="videojs.record.js"></script>
<script src="videojs.record.libvorbis.js"></script>

And use libvorbis.js for the audioEngine option.

Check out the audio-only Ogg example (demo / source).

lamejs

lamejs provides a Javascript implementation of a PCM to MP3 encoder and you can choose to use this instead of RecordRTC. lamejs is currently only supported when recording audio-only.

Include the videojs.record.lamejs.js plugin:

<script src="videojs.record.js"></script>
<script src="videojs.record.lamejs.js"></script>

Enable lamejs by specifying the lamejs audioEngine and the audioWorkerURL options.

Check out the audio-only MP3 example (demo / source).

opus-recorder

opus-recorder provides a Javascript implementation of PCM to Opus encoder and exports it into an Ogg container. opus-recorder is currently only supported when recording audio-only.

Include the recorder.js script (instead of RecordRTC.js) and place it before any other scripts:

<script src="/path/to/recorder.js"></script>

And include the videojs.record.opus-recorder.js plugin:

<script src="videojs.record.js"></script>
<script src="videojs.record.opus-recorder.js"></script>

And specify the opus-recorder audioEngine and audioWorkerURL options.

Check out the audio-only Opus example (demo / source).

recorder.js

recorder.js is another plugin for recording/exporting PCM output of Web Audio API nodes, similar to RecordRTC. recorder.js is currently only supported when recording audio-only.

Include the recorder.js library (instead of RecordRTC.js) on the page:

<script src="/path/to/recorder.js" async></script>

And include the videojs.record.recorderjs.js plugin:

<script src="videojs.record.js"></script>
<script src="videojs.record.recorderjs.js"></script>

And specify the recorder.js audioEngine option.

Check out the audio-only recorder.js example (demo / source).

Localization

This plugin supports multiple languages. Each language has it's own file (found in the lang directory) that contains the translated text.

Using a different language, for example Dutch (nl), is done by including the Video.js language file and the plugin's language file:

<script src="videojs-record/dist/lang/nl.js"></script>
<script src="//vjs.zencdn.net/5.8.0/lang/nl.js"></script>

And setting the Video.js player's language option:

language: "nl"

Adding support for an additional language is done by adding a new file with a filename that consists of the countrycode and the .json extension, eg. fr.json. The build script compiles the JSON into a usable language file, eg. fr.js. Check the Video.js wiki for a list of supported countrycodes. Pull requests to add more languages to this plugin are always welcome!

More features using other plugins

The Video.js community created lots of plugins that can be used to enhance the player's functionality. Plugins actually tested with videojs-record:

• videojs-persistvolume - Saves user's volume setting using localStorage, but falls back to cookies if necessary.

Development

Install grunt-cli:

sudo npm install -g grunt-cli

Install dependencies using npm:

npm install

Build a minified version:

grunt

Generated files are placed in the dist directory.

Font

Generate or update the font files:

grunt font

Check the the font readme for more information.

License

This work is licensed under the MIT License.

Changelog

1.3.0 - 2016/03/25

• Added enumerateDevices API (#16)
• Preventing invalid or negative value in formatTime (#46 by @zang)