W3C

Media Recording API

January 04, 2013

This version:
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Latest published version:
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Editors:
Jim Barnett, Genesys
Travis Leithead, Microsoft

Status of This Document

This section describes the status of this document at the time of its publication. Other documents may supersede this document. A list of current W3C publications and the latest revision of this technical report can be found in the W3C technical reports index at http://www.w3.org/TR/.

This document is not complete. It is subject to major changes and, while early experimentations are encouraged, it is therefore not intended for implementation. The Media Capture Task Force expects this specification to evolve significantly based on:

  • Privacy issues that arise when capturing media.
  • Technical discussions within the task force.
  • Experience gained through early experimentations.
  • Feedback received from other groups and individuals.

This document was published by the Media Capture Task Force as an Editor's Draft. If you wish to make comments regarding this document, please send them to public-media-capture@w3.org (subscribe, archives). All feedback is welcome.

Publication as an Editor's Draft does not imply endorsement by the W3C Membership. This is a draft document and may be updated, replaced or obsoleted by other documents at any time. It is inappropriate to cite this document as other than work in progress.

This document was produced by a group operating under the 5 February 2004 W3C Patent Policy. W3C maintains a public list of any patent disclosures (Web Real-Time Communication Working Group, Device APIs Working Group) made in connection with the deliverables of the group; that page also includes instructions for disclosing a patent. An individual who has actual knowledge of a patent which the individual believes contains Essential Claim(s) must disclose the information in accordance with section 6 of the W3C Patent Policy.

1.0 Overview

This proposal attempts to make basic recording very simple, while still allowing for more complex use cases. In the simplest case, the application instatiates the MediaRecorder object, calls record() and then calls stopRecord() or waits for the MediaStream to be ended. The contents of the recording will be made available in the platform's default encoding via the dataavailable event. Functions are available to query the platform's available set of encodings, and to select the desired ones if the author wishes. The application can also choose how much data it wants to receive at one time. By default a Blob containing the entire recording is returned when the recording finishes. However the application can choose to receive smaller buffers of data at regular intervals.

2.0 Media Recorder API


[Constructor (MediaStream stream)]
interface MediaRecorder : EventTarget  {

    readonly attribute MediaStream    stream;
    readonly attribute RecordingState state;
             attribute EventHandler   onrecording;
             attribute EventHandler   onstop;
             attribute EventHandler   ondataavailable;
             attribute EventHandler   onpause;
             attribute EventHandler   onresume;
             attribute EventHandler   onmutetrack;
             attribute EventHandler   onunmutetrack;
             attribute EventHandler   onphoto;
             attribute EventHandler   onerror;
             attribute EventHandler   onwarning;
    void                              record (optional long timeSlice);
    void                              stop ();
    void                              pause();
    void                              resume();
    void                              muteTrack(DOMString trackID);
    void                              unmuteTrack(DOMString trackID);
    void                              takePhoto(DOMString trackID);
    void                              requestData();
    AvailableRecordingFormats         getOptions ();
    void                              setOptions (RecordingFormat RequestedFormats);
};

The MediaRecorder() constructor takes one argument which must be of type MediaStream (see Media-Capture). When the constructor is invoked, the UA must construct a new MediaRecorder object, set its mediaStream attribute to be the provided MediaStream, set its state attribute to 'inactive' and return the object.

2.1 Attributes

stream of type MediaStream, readonly

The MediaStream passed in to the constructor.

state of type Recordingstate, readonly

The current state of the MediaRecorder object.

onrecording of type EventHandler

Called to handle the recording event.

onstop of type EventHandler

Called to handle the stop event.

ondataavailable of type EventHandler

Called to handle the dataavailable event. Note that the Blob (see FILEAPI) of recorded data is contained in this event and can be accessed via the 'data' attribute.

onpause of type EventHandler

Called to handle the pause event.

onresume of type EventHandler

Called to handle the resume event.

onmutetrackrecording of type EventHandler

Called to handle the mutetrackrecording event.

onunmutetrackrecording of type EventHandler

Called to handle the unmutetrackrecording event.

onphoto of type EventHandler

Called to handle the photo event. The photo event returns a photo (as a Blob) in a compressed format (for example: PNG/JPEG) rather than a raw ImageData object due to the expected large, uncompressed size of the resulting photos.

onerror of type EventHandler

Called to handle the recordingerror event.

onwarning of type EventHandler

Called to handle the recordingwarning event.

2.2 Methods

record

When a MediaRecorder object’s record() method is invoked, then, if the state is not "inactive", the UA must raise an INVALID_STATE exception and return immediately. Otherwise, it must queue a task, using the DOM manipulation task source, that runs the following steps:

  1. Set state to 'recording' and wait until media becomes available from stream.
  2. Once data becomes available raise a recording event and start gathering the data into a Blob (see FILEAPI).
  3. If the timeSlice argument has been provided, then once timeSlice milliseconds of data have been colleced, raise a dataavailable event containing the Blob of collected data, and start gathering a new Blob of data. Otherwise (if timeSlice has not been provided), continue gathering data into the original Blob.
  4. When the stream is ended set recording to 'false' and stop gathering data.
  5. Then raise a dataavailable event containing the Blob of data.
  6. Finally, raise a stoprecording event.

Note that stop(), requestData(), pause, and muteTrack also affect the recording behavior.


The UA must record the MediaStream in such a way that the original Tracks can be retrieved at playback time. If any Track within the MediaStream is muted at any time (i.e., if its readyState is set to muted), the UA must insert black frames or silence until the Track is unmuted. If the UA is unable to start recording or at any point is unable to contine recording, it must raise a recordingerror event, follwowed by a dataavailable event containing the Blob it has gathered, follwed by the stoprecording event.

stop

When a MediaRecorder object’s stopRecording method is invoked, then if state is "inactive", the user agent must raise an INVALID_STATE exception and return immediately. Otherwise it must queue a task, using the DOM manipulation task source, that runs the following steps:

  1. Set state to 'inactive' and stop gathering data.
  2. Raise a dataavailable event containing the Blob of data that has been gathered.
  3. Raise a recordingdone event
requestData

When a MediaRecorder object’s requestData() method is invoked, then if state is not "recording" the user agent must raise an INVALID_STATE exception and return immediately. Otherwise it must queue a task, using the DOM manipulation task source, that runs the following steps:

  1. Raise a dataavailable event containing the current Blob of saved data.
  2. Creat a new Blob and gather subsequent data into it.
pause

When a MediaRecorder object’s pause() method is invoked, then if state is "inactive" the user agent must raise an INVALID_STATE exception and return immediately. Otherwise it must queue a task, using the DOM manipulation task source, that runs the following steps:

  1. Set state to "paused".
  2. Stop gathering data into its current Blob (but keep the Blob available so that recording can be resumed in the future).
  3. Raise a pause event
resume

When a MediaRecorder object’s resume() method is invoked, then if state is "inactive" the user agent must raise an INVALID_STATE exception and return immediately. Otherwise it must queue a task, using the DOM manipulation task source, that runs the following steps:

  1. Set state to "recording".
  2. Resume (or continue) gathering data into its current Blob.
  3. Raise a resume event.
muteTrack

When a MediaRecorder object’s muteTrack() method is invoked, then if state is not "recording" the user agent must raise an INVALID_STATE exception and return immediately. Otherwise if the trackID provided is not the id of a Track object in stream's audioTrackList or videoTrackList it must raise an INVALID_TRACK_ID exception and return immediately. Otherwise it must queue a task, using the DOM manipulation task source, that runs the following steps:

  1. If the specified Track is a video track, begin inserting black frames into the Blob in place of any data coming from the underlying source. Otherwise (the Track is an audio track) insert silence into the Blob in place of any data coming from the underlying source.
  2. Raise a mutetrackrecording event.
unmuteTrack

When a MediaRecorder object’s unmuteTrack() method is invoked, then if state is not "recording", the user agent must raise an INVALID_STATE exception and return immediately. Otherwise if the trackID provided is not the id of a Track object in stream's audioTrackList or videoTrackList it must raise an INVALID_TRACK_ID exception and return immediately. Otherwise it must queue a task, using the DOM manipulation task source, that runs the following steps:

  1. Until such time as data is available for this Track from the underlying media source, insert black frames (for a video track) or silence (for an audio track) into the current Blob.
  2. Once data is available for this Track from the underlying media source, start collecting it into the current Blob.
  3. Raise an unmutetrackrecording event.
takePhoto

When a MediaRecorder object’s takePhoto() method is invoked, then if the trackID provided is not the id of a Track object in stream's videoTrackList whose readyState is "live", the UA must raise an INVALID_TRACK_ID exception and return immediately. Otherwise it must queue a task, using the DOM manipulation task source, that runs the following steps:

  1. Gather data from the Track into a Blob containing a single still image. The method of doing this will depend on the underlying device. Some devices may just do a frame grab, while others may temporarilly stop streaming data, reconfigure themselves with the appropriate photo settings, take the photo, and then resume streaming. In this case, the stopping and restarting of streaming should cause mute and unmute events to fire on the Track in question.
  2. Raise an photo event containing the Blob.
getOptions

When a MediaRecorder object’s getOptions() method is invoked, the user agent must return a availableRecordingFormats structure containing the set of recording formats that it supports.

setOptions

When a MediaRecorder object’s setOptions() method is invoked, then if state is not "inactive", the user agent must raise an INVALID_STATE exception and return immediately. Otherwise it must run the following steps before returning:

  1. Let encodings be the current set of encodings that are specified to be used for recording by the MediaRecorder. (If setOptions() has not yet been called, these will be the UA's defaults.)
  2. For each encoding format that is specified in the requestedFormats argument, if the UA does not support it, raise a UNSUPPORTED_OPTION exception, set encodings back to its value in step 2, and terminate these steps. Otherwise replace the corresponding member of encodings with the specified value.

3.0 RecordingState Enum

enum RecordingState {
    "inactive",
    "recording",
    "paused",
};
Enumeration description
inactiveRecording is not occuring. (Either it has not been started or it has been stopped.)
recordingRecording has been started and he UA is capturing data.
pausedRecording has been started, then paused, and not yet stopped or resumed.

3.1 BlobEvent

BlobEvent interface

[Constructor(DOMString type, optional BlobEventInit blobInitDict)]
interface BlobEvent : Event {
    readonly attribute Blob data;
};
Attributes
data of type Blob, readonly
Returns a Blob object whose type attribute indicates the encoding of the blob data. An implementation must return a Blob in a format that is capable of being viewed in an HTML <img> tag.

BlobEventInit dictionary

dictionary BlobEventInit : EventInit {
    Blob data;
};
Dictionary BlobEventInit Members
data of type Blob
A Blob object containing the data to deliver via this event.

3.2 Dictionary AvailableRecordingFormats

dictionary AvailableRecordingFormats {
    sequence<DOMString> containerEncodingFormats;
    sequence<DOMString> audioEncodingFormats;
    sequence<DOMString> videoEncodingFormats;
};
containerEncodingFormats of type sequence<DOMtring>

A list of the container encoding formats that the platform supports.

audioEncodingFormats of type sequence<DOMtring>

A list of the audio encoding formats that the platform supports.

videoEncodingFormats of type sequence<DOMtring>

A list of the video encoding formats that the platform supports.

The UA must be able to play back any encoding format that it can record into. The UA must support a container format capable of holding at least two video Tracks and two audio Tracks.

3.3 Dictionary RecordingFormat

dictionary RecordingFormat {
    <DOMString> containerEncodingFormat;
    <DOMString> audioEncodingFormat;
    <DOMString> videoEncodingFormat;
};
containerEncodingFormat of type <DOMtring>

The container encoding format to use for recording. If it is not specified, the platform default will be used.

audioEncodingFormat of type <DOMtring>

The audio encoding format to use for recording. If it is not specified, the platform default will be used.

videoEncodingFormat of type <DOMtring>

The video encoding format to use for recording. If it is not specified, the platform default will be used.

4.0 Error Handling

4.1 General Principles

Errors are indicated in two ways: exceptions and objects passed to error callbacks. Both forms of error reporting must provide an object of type RecordingError. An exception must be thrown in the following cases:

  • The type of any argument passed to a function did not match what was expected. An appropriate string from the RecordingExceptionName enum must be used as the error name.
  • A function call was made when the Recorder is in an invalid state, or a state in which that particular function is not allowed to be executed. In this case, the string INVALID_STATE must be used as the error name.

In all other cases, an error object must be provided to the failure callback. The error name in the object provided must be picked from the RecordingErrorName enums. After raising the error, the UA must raise a dataavailable event, containing any data that it has gathered, and then a recordingdone event. The UA may set platform-specific limits, such those for the minimum and maximum Blob size that it will support, or the number of Tracks it will record at once. It must signal a fatal error if these limits are exceeded. If a non-fatal error occurs during recording, the UA should raise a recordingwarning event, with data indicating the nature of the problem, and continue recording.

4.2 RecordingError

interface RecordingError {
    readonly attribute DOMString  name;
    readonly attribute DOMString? message;
};

4.2.1 Attributes

message of type DOMString, readonly, nullable
A human readable description of the error. This string may vary between different user agents.
name of type DOMString, readonly
A string representing the type of error. This string must be one of those defined by the RecordingExceptionName or RecordingErrorName enums for the error object to be valid.

4.3 RecordingExceptionName

enum RTCExceptionName {
    "INVALID_MEDIASTREAM_TRACK_ID",
    "INVALID_STATE"
    "UNSUPPORTED_OPTION"
};
Enumeration description
INVALID_MEDIASTREAM_TRACK_IDThe argument provided is not the ID of any MediaStreamTrack belonging to the Media Recorder's stream.
INVALID_STATEThe function was called on a MediaRecorder that is an invalid state, or a state in which the function is not allowed to be executed.
UNSUPPORTED_OPTIONThe UA cannot provide the codec or recording option that has been requested.

4.4 RecordingErrorName

enum RecordingErrorName {
    "OUT_OF_MEMORY",
    "ILLEGAL_STREAM_MODIFICATION"
     "OTHER_RECORDING_ERROR"
};
Enumeration description
OUT_OF_MEMORYThe UA has exhaused the available memory. User agents should provide as much additional information in the error message as possible.
ILLEGAL_STREAM_MODIFICATIONA modification to the stream has occurred that makes it impossible to continue recording. An example would be the addition of a Track while recording is occurring. User agents should provide as much additional information in the error message as possible.
OTHER_RECORDING_ERRORUsed for an fatal error other than those listed above. User agents should provide as much additional information in the error message as possible.

5.0 Event summary

The following additional events fire on MediaRecorder objects:

Event name Interface Fired when...
recording Event The UA has started recording data on the MediaStream.
stoprecording Event The UA has stopped recording data on the MediaStream.
dataavailable BlobEvent The UA generates this even to return data to the application. The 'data' attribute of this event contains a Blob of recorded data.
photo BlobEvent The UA uses this event to return a photo to the application (as a Blob). The 'data' attribute of this event contains a Blob of recorded snapshot data.
pause Event The UA has paused recording data on the MediaStream.
resume MediaSteamEvent The UA has resumed recording data on the MediaStream.
mutetrackrecording MediaSteamTrackEvent The MediaRecorder has muted recording on a Track.
unmutetrackrecording MediaSteamTrackEvent The MediaRecorder has unmuted recording on a Track.
recordingerror RecordingError A fatal error has occurred and the UA has stopped recording. More detailed error information is available in the 'message' attribute.
recordingwarning CustomEvent A problem has occurred, but the UA has not stopped recording. More detailed information is available in the 'message' attribute. [Not clear if we need this event.]

A. Open Issues

  1. Do we need an MTI format?
  2. Do we need a "setSyncPoint()" operator and a "syncpoint" signal, so that the client can tell the recorder to insert a point at which a recording can be broken up (typically a new I-frame)?

B. References

B.1 Normative references

[FILE-API]
Arun Ranganathan; Jonas Sicking. File API. 25 October 2012. W3C Working Draft. (Work in progress.) URL: http://www.w3.org/TR/2011/WD-FileAPI/
[Media-Capture]
Daniel C. Burnett; Arant Narayan. Media Capture and Streams. 15 November 2012. W3C Editors' Draft. (Work in progress.) URL: http://dev.w3.org/2011/webrtc/editor/getusermedia.html