MediaServer WebStudio user manual This documentation provides information regarding how to use the web-based camera and screen recorder included in MediaServer (since version 6.4.0). 1
Table of contents 1. Compatibility 2. Creating a recording 2.1. Launching the WebStudio 2.1. Choosing sources 2.2. Checking audio level 2.3. Defining a title 2.4. Starting and stopping 2.5. Editing the video 3. Advanced features 3.1. Manual layout control 3.2. Slides detection 3.3. Adding more sources 4. Settings 4.1. General settings 4.2. Audio settings 4.3. Video settings 5. Limitations 5.1. Mixing mic and system audio 5.2. Popup 5.3. The first time: installing extensions 5.4. Capturing Keynote and Powerpoint 2
1. Compatibility The WebStudio feature has been added to MediaServer 6.4.0. It requires Chrome 51+ or Firefox 45+ and works on Windows, OSX and Linux. To capture the desktop, installing a browser extension is required. Video capture is pretty resource-intensive, so a powerful PC will ensure better framerates. We recommend an i5 or i7 Intel CPU for best performance. 3
2. Creating a recording 2.1. Launching the WebStudio In order to launch the WebStudio you need to go into your MediaServer s menu. You select Add content, Video on demand and By capturing my screen or my webcam. A new window will open and ask you to choose the sources. 4
2.1. Choosing sources Here you need to choose the device you want to share. You can choose between your webcam, your desktop or both. If you choose to use the camera you ll be prompt in the top left corner and the app will ask you to share your screen and your camera. The first time, it may be necessary to install the browser extensions in order to capture the desktop. 5
2.2. Checking audio level To ensure a correct recording you need to check audio level is in the green zone with peaks in the orange zone. If the indicator turns red you need to reduce the recording level in your OS settings. If the audio level does not change when talking, you may need to choose another audio source. - Chrome: On the camera icon at the top right of the window - Firefox: You need to select the source when you launch the capture. Select camera or both. You ll be ask to choose the screen to share and the audio/video source. 6
2.3. Defining a title To add a title to your video you just need to click on the Video title field and insert a title for your video. 7
2.4. Starting and stopping To start recording simply press on the record button (big red button in the center). The button will change to a square, a timer will appear and the Reset and + button will turn grey. Press the square button to stop the recording. 2.5. Editing the video Once the video is recorded you can edit it just as all the other videos on the MediaServer. 8
3. Advanced features UbiCast WebStudio offers some advanced features in order to control the size, the position and the order of the different windows. You can enable slide detection if you re running a presentation, use a green screen (chroma key) or even use more than two sources during your recording. 3.1. Manual layout control When you click on each window a red frame will appear around it. You ll be able to expand or reduce the size of the window you chose and move it exactly where you want inside the main window. 9
Using the right-click of your mouse when you re over the camera or the desktop capture window will open a contextual menu. 10
- Forward/Backward: use this option if you want to allow one of the window to be placed over the other. It is useful if you want to do picture in picture. - Position: if you want to quickly set up a position for a window (top, bottom, left, right, center, center horizontally or vertically) - Fullscreen: put the window you chose in full screen (inside of the WebStudio window) - Reset: if you want to reset the position or the size of a window to its default size 3.2. Slides detection When you use the WebStudio to record your desktop you ll be able to record slides. This feature is recording every changes in the desktop source so if you 11
are using WebStudio to record a presentation your slides will be recorded every time a slide change is detected. Keep in mind that the slide extracting tool is creating a slide every time it detects a changing in the desktop window. You might need to remove some unwanted detected slides using the Slides tab in the MediaServer. 12
In this menu you ll be able to remove an unwanted slide from your capture. Let s say the 26th slides is unwanted because it shows the presentation software. Click on the 26 tab and hit the delete button (be careful to use the one on the right not the one on the left which is deleting all the slides). 13
3.3. Adding more sources You can add different resources inside your WebStudio recordings. 14
- add a camera: if you use Chrome you can t add another camera. This can be done using Firefox. We do not recommend to exceed 2 cameras. You can mix sources using i.e. two cameras and 2 desktop. - add a desktop: use it to add a capture of another window from your computer. You can add as may capture as you want. In the example below we used 4 desktop sources and one camera source. 15
- add an external resource as a logo or a picture (via an URL or an other source (Firefox supports 2 or more cameras sources). Be aware that the resources must be hosted on the same server so we advise you to upload them into your MediaServer: 16
Here you can see that we uploaded two resources: a background and a logo. As you can notice, the resources files URLs are built like the following: «your MediaServer name»/public/images/custom/«resource name». In this example, to add a background we will use the following address: ubicast.tv/public/images/custom/background-website.jpg. Use the same scheme to add different images or logos. In the image below there are two background bands (top and bottom) and one logo: 17
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4. Settings 4.1. General settings - Use date as title: the date of the day will be used to title the video - Upload continuously during capture: - Allow changing the layout during capture (this will disable slides detection): if you check this option you ll be able to change the layout (moving or resizing the different sources) while you re recording but this will stop the slide detection. - Enable record countdown: this option will display a countdown before launching the capture (5 seconds) This menu is the same on Firefox and Chrome. 19
4.2. Audio settings This menu is slightly different if you use Chrome or Firefox. Using Firefox: Enable echo cancellation: useful if you want to reduce the echo effect on your recording Enable noise suppression: helps reducing the background noises and clean the signal Enable auto gain control: the audio gain will be automatically adjusted Show audio monitor: display or hide the audio monitor bar Audio bitrate: used to adjust the bitrate of the audio stream from 32 to 320 kb/s (lowest to highest quality) Using Chrome: The menu is way smaller. Only audio monitoring and bitrate settings are available. 20
4.3. Video settings Video bitrate: use this setting to adjust the bitrate of the video from 1 to 6 mb/s (the higher the better is the quality but the bigger is the size of the file) Video size: use it to define the resolution of the video output from 320x280 to 1920x1080 (full HD). Capture entire screen (Firefox only) 21
5. Limitations 5.1. Mixing mic and system audio Only selected PCs running Windows 7 or 10 provide a special source called Stereo Mix source which should be selected when choosing the capture sources. 5.2. Popup Due to technical limitations, the WebStudio window should not be closed or minimized during capture or the recording will be lost. 22
5.3. The first time: installing extensions When you launch the WebStudio for the first time you ll reach this screen on Google Chrome: Please click on the blue link called this browser extension. A new window will open: 23
Install the extension and relaunch the WebStudio or you can directly install the extension via the MediaServer here: 24
The process is the same on Firefox the messages are just different: 25
5.4. Capturing Keynote and Powerpoint Some apps like Apple Keynote launch another application when starting the presentation; in that case, you need to capture the whole desktop instead of just the app. 26