Use the Wowza Video REST API to record a live stream or transcoder to the Wowza Video™ service and download recorded streams from Wowza Video. Recordings are limited to 8 hours. To record an event longer than 8 hours, stop and restart the transcoder or live stream.
Note: If you're a Wowza Video subscriber, recordings created using the recording parameter will not be available on the Asset Management page. If you want to mange your recording through asset management, set the save_asset parameter to true when creating a live stream. This will generate both a VOD stream and a recording.
Recordings stored in Wowza Video generate additional costs. Billing is based on your peak storage, which is the greatest amount of recorded content stored in a given month. You can check your peak storage in the Wowza Video user interface or by using the API. See the article View usage data with the Wowza Video REST API.
Audio and video must be transcoded when recording a WebRTC source stream. For more information, see Connect a WebRTC stream to Wowza Video using the Wowza Video REST API.
You can configure your stream so that recording begins as soon as the live stream or transcoder starts, or you can start recording after the stream has already begun.
Begin recording when you start a transcoder — Recommended
You configure your stream to record as soon as the transcoder begins.
This method ensures that you record the highest quality video and audio and does not require API calls to be manually sent while the stream is started. For more information, see Begin recording when you start a transcoder.
Begin recording a stream after a transcoder has started
There might be situations when you want to record only part of the stream. For example, if you have a welcome slate before the video content begins and you only want to record the video content. While we recommend that you configure your stream to begin recording when you start your transcoder and edit the stream after you download the recording, you can choose to start and stop the recording while the transcoder is running. For more information, see Begin recording a stream after a transcoder has started.
Record a specific output rendition — Use only when you want to include a watermark
We recommend that you only configure your transcoder to record a specific output rendition if you want to include a watermark enabled on the transcoder, or you would like to record a stream at a lower quality. For more information, see Record a specific output rendition.
