Easily integrate this app into your BigBlueButton server to automatically convert class recordings into MP4 videos.

After a BigBlueButton class ends, recording process kicks in, which will process recording in three stages - archieve, process and publish. Once recording is published, /usr/local/bigbluebutton/core/scripts/post_publish/post_publish.rb is executed.

In post_publish.rb, we invoke bbb-mp4.sh with corresponding meeting_id to convert recording into mp4 video.

bbb-mp4.sh starts a node process to launch Chrome browser with the BigBlueButton playback URL in a Virtual Screen Buffer, that plays the recording and record the screen in WEBM format.

After compeltion of recording, FFmpeg is used to convert WEBM to MP4 and moved to /var/www/bigbluebutton-default/recording.

When you visit the default BBB playback url https://<your-bbb-fqdn>/playback/presentation/2.0/playback.html?meetingId=<meeting_id>, either of the following two cases happen:

• MP4 video exists: you are redirect to https://<your-bbb-fqdn>/recording/<meeting_id>.mp4 to view MP4 video
• MP4 video doesn't exist: you are redirect to https://<your-bbb-fqdn>/playback/presentation/2.0/playback_default.html?meetingId=<meeting_id> to view default playback recording

Hence, you can safely deploy this project on your existing BigBlueButton server.

• Going forward, all your recordings would get converted into MP4 videos.
• Older recordings will still be accessible as default BBB playback recording.

1. Install the Docker as per the instruction mentioned here https://docs.docker.com/engine/install/

# Assuming you install bbb-mp4 project at /var/www/
# SSH to your BigBlueButton server and execute the following commands
cd /var/www
git clone https://github.com/manishkatyan/bbb-mp4.git
cd bbb-mp4
cp env-example .env

Edit .env to update the following parameters:

1. BBB_DOMAIN_NAME: fully-qualified domain name of your BigBlueButton server (Example - bbb.higheredlab.com)
2. COPY_TO_LOCATION: location where converted MP4 videos should be kept. Leave it at the default value so that you can view MP4 video at https://<your-bbb-fqdn>/recording/<meeting_id>.mp4.

# Execute the following to install all required packages. 
./bbb-mp4-install.sh

bbb-mp4-install.sh will install the following packages In Docker :

1. XVFB
2. Google Chrome
3. FFmpeg
4. NodeJS
5. Dependencies

During this installation, bbb-mp4-install.sh will also do the following:

• update the default post_publish.rb to invoke bbb-mp4.sh that will start automatic MP4 conversion after a class recording is published.
• create a directory recording at /var/www/bigbluebutton-default to store converted MP4 videos that can be accessed via browser.
• update the default playback at /var/bigbluebutton/playback/presentation/2.0/playback.html to redirect to MP4 videos at /recording.

# give bigbluebutton user sudo access
usermod -aG sudo bigbluebutton

# make sudo access passwordless
sudo visudo
# add the following line at the end of the file
bigbluebutton ALL=(ALL) NOPASSWD: ALL

You need to give user bigbluebutton sudo access, as detailed above, for bbb-mp4 to run correctly.

No changes are required from your side to view MP4 videos created by bbb-mp4.

As we updated the default playback.html, when you would visit the default playback url - https://<your-bbb-fqdn>/playback/presentation/2.0/playback.html?meetingId=<meeting_id> - you would be redirected to the corresponding MP4 video url - https://<your-bbb-fqdn>/recording/<meeting_id>.mp4.

If you are using Greenlight or Moodle, you will continue to use the same way to view MP4 videos.

In case you want to restore the default playback.html, please follow the steps below:

mv /var/bigbluebutton/playback/presentation/2.0/playback_default.html /var/bigbluebutton/playback/presentation/2.0/playback.html
mv /usr/local/bigbluebutton/core/scripts/post_publish/post_publish.rb.default /usr/local/bigbluebutton/core/scripts/post_publish/post_publish.rb

With this, you would be able to restore default playback behavior and default post_poublish action.

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bbb-mp4 app builds on the ideas from several other projects, including:

• puppetcam
• Canvas-Streaming-Example
• bbb-recorder