AVChat Software Product Blog

We’ve made a small update to our audio recorder  (FLVAR) today:

• when the user does not have a sound card a proper error message is shown
• new option in avc_settings.xxx to specify the path to the language file
• language file was moved to the translations folder and renamed en.xml
• The line error/status message now can display 2 lines of text
• fixed some descriptions in avc_settings.xxx
• added inclusion of integration.php by default in avc_settings.php (integration.php can be used to change the settings in avc_settings.php so you don’t have to change them every time you update to a newer version of avc_settings.php)

To get the new build (108) just download FLVAR again from your client/trial area. The media server files have not been modified so you just ahve to update your client side files.

A new build of  HDFVR is available now.This build contains a lot of bug fixes and an improved UI.

The new UI:

• The fps counter is aligned to the left bottom corner.
• The backround color property is now functional.
• The sound level display is tinier.
• Corect paddings for all the elements in the scene.  A  padding var was added to avc_settins.xxx so that you can control the padding between the elements.

Issues fixed:

We’ve fixed a lot of small bugs from UI and functionality and a few critical ones:

• Spellchecked and corected docs.We’ve added better comments in avc_settings.xxx.
• We’ve fixed the issue with streamName change that was not working properly.
• We’ve fixed the issue with the size of the snapshot.
• We’ve fixed the issue with taking a snapsot for each video when recording more than one video in a session.
• The kfps info inside the quality files is actualy doing something.
• We’ve corected some of the error messages (proper error when wrong domain name and proper error when coming from an unlicensed domain ).

Where can you get it?

You can download the new build from your client/trial area.

How to install the new version?

Just make a clean install or overwrite the old files (including the files on the media server) and restart the media server.

How do I get HDFVR?o

You can buy it from here: http://hdfvr.com/buy-now or get a 30 day trial from the HDFVR web site.

This is part 2 of our 3 part series on recording high quality Flash video over slow connections.

As explained in the first part, a big buffer should be used in the recorder flash app so that the video and audio data has where to wait before its turn comes to travel to the media server.

When the user stops the recording (by pressing a STOP button for example) most probably there still is some audio & video data in the buffer, data that has not been sent yet to the media server.

Part 2: wait for the audio and video data to reach the media server before we display any SUCCESS message to the user

Otherwise you will most probably end up with videos with missing endings and frustrated users.

Heres how stopping a recording unfolds in our flash video recorder:

1. STOP button is pressed (or recording time limit is reached)
2. we stop capturing data from the cam and mic
3. we display a SAVING VIDEO message until the buffer is empty (all the data in the buffer is sent to the server)
4. when the buffer reaches 0 we finally display the recording saved properly success message.

In code (as2) Step 2 translates in ns.attachAudio(null) followed by ns.attachVideo(null).

Step 3 and 4 (detecting when all the data has reached the media server ) can be done in several ways but we listen for a NetStream.Buffer.Empty or NetStream.Record.Stop net status event fired while ns.bufferLength == 0 .

In as3 the procedure should be similar.

In part 1 we’ve talked about using a big buffer on the client side.

In part 3 we will talk about getting the media server to properly save the video and audio data to the HDD.