bbb-dl 0.9.9.5

Big Blue Button Downloader that downloads a BBB lesson as MP4 video

Big Blue Button (BBB) Downloader

Downloads a BBB lesson as MP4 video. The assembled video includes:

• shared audio and webcams video
• presented slides with
  • whiteboard actions (text and drawings)
  • cursor movements
  • zooming
• screen sharing

If something does not work, feel free to contact me.

Setup

1. Install Python >=3.7

2. Install ffmpeg

3. Run: pip install --user bbb-dl

4. Run playwright install chromium

5. Run bbb-dl --help to see all options

If you ever need to update bbb-dl run: pip install -U bbb-dl

Usage

Temporary files are default stored in the application data folder

• The --backup option uses the same location
• You can change this location with the --working-dir option
• On Windows, the folder is located in %localappdata%\bbb-dl
• On Linux / MacOS, the folder is located in ~/.local/share/bbb-dl/
• If you used the --keep-tmp-files option and you run the program again with other --skip-annotations or --skip-cursor options, then you may want to remove the corresponding frames folder inside the temporary directory. Because frames are not overwritten.
• If ffmpeg has an error and a file has not been finished, it should be deleted from the temporary directory.

Example call:

bbb-dl --skip-annotations https://your.bbb.org/playback/presentation/2.3/playback.html?meetingId=5d9100very_long_id70001800032c-160100033965

It is recommended to set the output resolution with --force-width and --force-height

usage: bbb-dl [-h] [-sw] [-swfd] [-sa] [-sc] [-bk] [-kt] [-v] [--ffmpeg-location FFMPEG_LOCATION] [-ncc] [--version] [--encoder ENCODER] [--audiocodec AUDIOCODEC] [--preset PRESET] [-f FILENAME] [-od OUTPUT_DIR]
              [-wd WORKING_DIR] [-mpc MAX_PARALLEL_CHROMES] [-fw FORCE_WIDTH] [-fh FORCE_HEIGHT]
              URL

Big Blue Button Downloader that downloads a BBB lesson as MP4 video

positional arguments:
  URL                   URL of a BBB lesson

options:
  -h, --help            show this help message and exit
  -sw, --skip-webcam    Skip adding the webcam video as an overlay to the final video. This will reduce the time to generate the final video
  -swfd, --skip-webcam-freeze-detection
                        Skip detecting if the webcam video is completely empty. It is assumed the webcam recording is not empty. This will reduce the time to generate the final video
  -sa, --skip-annotations
                        Skip capturing the annotations of the professor. This will reduce the time to generate the final video
  -sc, --skip-cursor    Skip capturing the cursor of the professor. This will reduce the time to generate the final video
  -bk, --backup         Downloads all the content from the server and then stops. After using this option, you can run bbb-dl again to create the video based on the saved files
  -kt, --keep-tmp-files
                        Keep the temporary files after finish. In case of an error bbb-dl will reuse the already generated files
  -v, --verbose         Print more verbose debug information
  --ffmpeg-location FFMPEG_LOCATION
                        Optional path to the directory in that your installed ffmpeg executable is located (Use it if ffmpeg is not located in your system PATH)
  -ncc, --no-check-certificate
                        Suppress HTTPS certificate validation
  --version             Print program version and exit
  --encoder ENCODER     Optional encoder to pass to ffmpeg (default libx264)
  --audiocodec AUDIOCODEC
                        Optional audiocodec to pass to ffmpeg (default copy the codec from the original source)
  --preset PRESET       Optional preset to pass to ffmpeg (default fast, a preset that can be used with all encoders)
  -f FILENAME, --filename FILENAME
                        Optional output filename
  -od OUTPUT_DIR, --output-dir OUTPUT_DIR
                        Optional output directory for final video
  -wd WORKING_DIR, --working-dir WORKING_DIR
                        Optional output directory for all temporary directories/files
  -mpc MAX_PARALLEL_CHROMES, --max-parallel-chromes MAX_PARALLEL_CHROMES
                        Maximum number of chrome browser instances used to generate frames
  -fw FORCE_WIDTH, --force-width FORCE_WIDTH
                        Force width on final output. (e.g. 1280) This can reduce the time to generate the final video
  -fh FORCE_HEIGHT, --force-height FORCE_HEIGHT
                        Force height on final output. (e.g. 720) This can reduce the time to generate the final video

Batch processing

If you want to do batch processing you can use bbb-dl-batch. All passed arguments will be passed to the respective bbb-dl. bbb-dl-batch itself only needs the path to a text file in which URLs to bbb sessions are specified line by line. See bbb-dl-batch --help for more information.

Successfully downloaded URL sessions are added to successful.txt in the output folder. Session URLs that could not be successfully downloaded are added to failed.txt in the output folder.

Alternativ downloader

Another bbb downloader project I would like to point out is bbb-video-download

• It uses a clever approach written in Node.js that can be easily integrated into a bbb server
• You can use the --backup option to feed bbb-video-download.

How can I speed up the rendering process?

FFmpeg can use different hardware accelerators for encoding videos. You can find more information about this here: https://trac.ffmpeg.org/wiki/HWAccelIntro

To use such hardware for encoding you may need to install drivers as indicated on the website and then set the --encoder option to the appropriate encoder.

For example, if you have an Nvidia graphics card installed on a computer, you can use it with the NVENC encoder. For this, you simply set the option --encoder h264_nvenc. You can see on the Nvidia website which graphics cards support this option. If your graphics card also supports H.265 (HEVC) you can set the option --encoder hevc_nvenc instead, which might be even faster (you have to test this yourself).

• For Intel CPUs, you can try the encoder h264_qsv (Use the option --encoder h264_qsv). Sometimes this encoder is faster than your graphics card encoder.

• For AMD CPUs / GPUs, you can try the encoder h264_amf (Use the option --encoder h264_amf).

You have to test yourself if it is faster to use your hardware encoder or not. In some cases, hardware encoders are slower than using the CPU directly.

License

This project is licensed under the terms of the MIT License. For further information, please look here.