Simple alternatives to Red5 recorder and server for webcam video capture?

Question

I'm looking for a flash script/library to capture video and audio from a webcam and then somehow get a saved flv to my encoding server. I'm not looking for something that will host the videos for me. I just need something simple to capture and then upload. I really want this to be open source and free.

I've done a fair amount of searching and it seems that most of what i can find is either a full blown service with hosting, or the red 5 suite. I've been trying for a day to get something going on with Red5, but honestly I haven't done any flash or java development in over 6 years and this seems way too complicated when all i really want is a flash object i can stick on a webpage.

I've search google and github and am really surprised by the lack of simple options. Am I missing something obvious? Thanks.

Answer 1

I ended up going with Red 5 server and red5recorder. It was tricky to get everything working properly, but here's an overview of what I did:

1. Check out red5 version 0.9.1 (I couldn't get the latest version working with red5recorder). ant prepare; ant clean dist.
2. Download the latest source for red5recorder.
3. Install Eclipse Ganymede Sr2 (3.4.2) Enterprise Edition (the latest version that works with both the red5 plugin and the flash builder plugin).
4. Install the red5 plugin according to http://wiki.red5.org/wiki/Red5Plugin
5. Install the Adobe Flash Builder 4 plugin into eclipse-install-dir/flash-builder and built it against the eclipse in eclipse-install-dir

6. Create a New Dynamic Web Project. I named it Red5Server. Select a New Target Runtime -> Infared | Red5 Server. Target the dist directory in the red5 checkout. so for me:

   • auto deploy dir: /Users/julia/code/red5-0.9.1.svn/dist/webapps/
   • start script: /Users/julia/code/red5-0.9.1.svn/dist/red5-debug.sh
   • stop script: /Users/julia/code/red5-0.9.1.svn/dist/red5-shutdown.sh

7. Import Flash Builder Project - red5recorder

8. Right click Red5Server | Run as.. | Run on Server. It should start up the server and show Directory listing for localhost:5080/Red5Server
9. In red5recorder's Recorder class, change server to be rtmp://127.0.0.1/Red5Server/
10. Right click on red5recorder.mxml and run it as an application. It should pop up a browser and the recorder should successfully connect to your webcam.

Now, red5recorder is really broken out of the box. It required quite a bit of tweaking to get it to do what it says it will, and once I was more comfortable, I ended up refactoring it altogether to do what I wanted.