Hey everyone,
I’m building a web conference app using Node.js and Express for the backend. I need to record these conferences on the server. My plan was to use a headless browser like Puppeteer to join each conference and capture screen media streams.
But I hit a snag. The navigator object is undefined on my headless page. Does anyone know a way around this?
If not, I’d love to hear from folks with experience in this area. What’s a good way to record web conferences server-side? I’m thinking of using WebRTC, probably with an SFU setup and Kurento.
Any tips or alternatives would be super helpful. Thanks!
have u tried using xvfb with puppeteer? it simulates a display server, might help with the navigator issue. also, check out mediasoup - it’s a webrtc sfu that can handle recording. i’ve used it before and it works pretty well for conf recording.
Have you considered using a WebRTC-based solution instead of a headless browser? I’ve had success with the mediasoup library for server-side recording of web conferences. It acts as an SFU (Selective Forwarding Unit) and can efficiently handle multiple streams.
To implement this, you’d set up mediasoup on your Node.js server to join conferences as a participant. This allows it to receive and record all streams. The setup process requires some effort, but it’s more reliable than browser-based approaches.
One caveat: recording multiple streams can be CPU-intensive. You might want to look into using worker threads to distribute the processing load. Also, pay attention to audio synchronization when recording multiple streams - you may need custom logic to keep everything aligned properly.
I’ve actually tackled a similar challenge before. Instead of using a headless browser, I found success with a WebRTC-based approach using mediasoup. It’s an SFU that handles conference recording really well.
The key is to set up mediasoup as a participant in your conference. This way, it can receive all the streams and record them server-side. You’ll need to configure your Node.js server to work with mediasoup, which takes some setup, but it’s worth it.
One thing to watch out for is CPU usage - recording multiple streams can be intensive. I ended up using worker threads to distribute the load, which helped a lot.
Also, don’t forget about audio sync issues when recording multiple streams. I had to implement some custom logic to keep everything aligned. It was tricky, but the end result was much more reliable than my initial attempts with headless browsers.