Viddler’s Flash video recorder makes it very simple to allow a user to record video straight to Viddler using their webcam on their computer. This process bypasses Viddler’s uploading and encoding procedures and recorded videos are available immediately after recording for playback.

The process to record a video

  1. Retrieve a Viddler record token
  2. Put the token in the recorder’s embed code
  3. (optional) Edit the details of the video after the user hits save

For a more detailed view of this process see our document entitled: How to: Record with Webcam.

Available Flashvars

  • recordToken – (required) unique token needed to record
  • permalink – Used as the finished video’s permalink after recording
  • maxlength – (in seconds) sets a custom max length of a recorded footage.
  • audioOnly – “Y”, “1″, “T” values will switch recorder in “audio-only” mode. No video data will be saved.
  • noUI – “Y”, “1″, “T” values will tell the recorder not to show the bottom control bar interface.
  • noButtons – “Y”, “1″, “T” tell the recorder not to show two buttons in the “no webcam” pane. This pane is only shown for users that do not have webcam installed.
  • recQuality – “H”, “M”, “L” values will set quality to High, Medium and Low, respectively, and will cause the initial quality selector not to be shown.
  • enableCallbacks – “Y”, “1″, “T” to turn on callbacks

Control the recorder using JavaScript

If you’d like to control the player using JavaScript instead of the Flash recorder’s default user interface you can do that. Here are the functions that are currently available.

  • doStartRecord() – start the recording
  • doStopRecord() – stop recording
  • doDelRecord() – delete recorded footage
  • doSaveRecord() – save the footage

JavaScript callbacks

If you’d like to listen in to what the Flash recorder is doing you can use the following JavaScript callbacks.

  • recordConnected() when recorder swf connects to the recording service
  • recordAuthorised() when recorder swf authorises it’s record token successfully
  • streamAccessDenied() – when a user denies Flash access to the camera and Microphone (by clicking “Deny” at the Flash prompt.)
  • recordStarted() when user starts recording
  • recordStopped() when user stops recording
  • recordBuffering(percent) when the preview beings to buffer before playback
  • recordBufferFull() when the recorded video buffer is complete and begins preview playback. After this callback, you can call the doDelRecord() or doSaveRecord() functions
  • recordDeleted() when user decides to delete the footage and re-record.
  • recordSave() when user decides to save video (yet before the request is sent to the server for actual processing)
  • recordDone(username, videoNum, videoKey) – when a video is successfully registered with backend systems and accessible on the site, we will call this method and pass the viddler username, video number and video key back.