Call Recording

[atharen]

Using MoSCoW method: M - Must have; S - Should have; C - Could have; W - Won't have

Is your feature request related to a problem? Please describe. I would like a convenient and reliable way to record calls.

Describe the solution you'd like [M] At minimum, the ability to click a button during a call session, initiating a local recording, including the video and audio of all participants, and if screen sharing is applicable, the audio playing through that respective stream.

Other, lower priority features to consider (Probably can be split in their own tasks/issues...):

• [S] Choice of what to record (Browser tab, specific screen, specific window)
• [S] Placing notifications that a call has been initiated to existing users, and any new users who join later on (Sort of consent to being recorded).
• [S] Specify location of where to save output
• [C] Video output parameters would be nice to have (bitrate, resolution, etc..)
• [C] Expand on storage options by allowing to save to cloud services (Nextcloud, Google Drive, etc..)
• [C] Should chat be added, record a log of that as well.

Describe alternatives you've considered OBS is an option, but not really convenient. Jitsi has call recordings but only through Dropbox. Zoom has call recordings but closed source.

Additional context Recording through WebRTC could be an option... I think this would cover the first lower priority bullet as should be built-in natively by the browser.

@ara4n (I presume) had suggested this on a recent HackerNews thread for a Twitch-like streaming solution based on Matrix. Not exactly the same feature, but still seems relevant.

Could be made available as an option in the ellipses menu.

Recording settings could go in an appropriate new tab

[compgeniuses]

The call recording could also offer an option to store recording on Nextcloud, or download the recording after the call.

[toniocat]

How about the party who's call you are recording could also set a flag "Do not allow my call to be recorded" as well? This could work well for copyright video or audio, that shouldn't be recorded.

[mingsterism]

is there any updates on this feature? how can it be done if i'd wish to contribute

[fkwp]

is there any updates on this feature? how can it be done if i'd wish to contribute

There are several options to tackle that issue:

• Distributed local recording
  • Every participant does store a local copy of its webcam/audio/screen-sharing streams including metadata (at least timestamps). After the meeting those streams are encrypted & uploaded to the media repository (or next cloud or whatever)
  • Requires a kind of video-conferencing player application or post-processing to replay the video-conference
• Recording bot
  • Note due to MatrixRTC being E2EE this recording bot needs to be part (a "regular" participant) of the conference in order to receive the media E2EE keys.
  • This bot would record all media streams and then render a final video.

[mingsterism]

which would you recommend is the better option for the long term. seems to me like the Recording bot will be best as it does not store data on people's own local storage which can take space. if it's a recording bot, do you have an idea of how it could be done? sorry, i'm new to element-call. happy to look deeper into the codes but if there was some direction that would be greatly appreciated as well.

thanks

[fkwp]

In very secure aware environments I would recommend the local recording.

For the implementation of the recording bot there are on a high level two different approaches:

• Using a headless web browser and capture screen including audio.
• Writing a backend bot component (a MatrixRTC client)
  • record all media streams and
  • then render a final video