Tips for Video Capture on Mobile Devices

Capturing video with Ziggeo means leaving all the logic handled by our own SDK. It is powerful, award winning and constantly updated. Definitely great option if you are not too keen on constant updates by yourself. Still, there are some tips that we can share with you that can assist you in making your own customer's experience even better.

Presentation

Having a basic layout means not having your content presented in the best light. This is why we have made our Modern theme as a default - active even if you do not set any.

If you however browse through some of our themes you will see something interesting. They all look great in our opinion, however some will look so much better in your own website. So what we recommend is to check them out.

You can see them on our Video Recorder Themes page. Great thing is that the theme you pick for your recorder comes for your Video Player as well.

All of them are fully responsive and mobile ready. What you might not have known is that you can use one very specific parameter to assist with the same.

ziggeo-width="100%"

That 100% will make the recorder fully wide. If you just set ziggeo-width="100" this would be equal to 100 pixels, however with the percentage sign as well, it makes it dynamic; or fluid if you prefer.

Likewise you can set it to 80% or 90% what ever suits your need more.

You can see example here:

<ziggeorecorder
	ziggeo-width="100%"
	...>
</ziggeorecorder>

Ready Up for Mobile

Depending on when you have set up Ziggeo on your website first time, you might not have the recommended setup just yet. No worry, we will show you exactly what you should set - and why - right here.

The recommended approach is always added to our Header page in our docs.

The code that you should use when creating your on page application is this:

var ziggeo_app = new ZiggeoApi.V2.Application({
	token:"APPLICATION_TOKEN",
	webrtc_streaming_if_necessary: true,
	webrtc_on_mobile: true
});

As you can see there is token, and then there are also webrtc_streaming_if_necessary and webrtc_on_mobile.

The webrtc_on_mobile says that you want the browser to use the camera directly. The benefit of this is that the recorder used is within your website and your control. If this is not set to true or if it is not set at all, anyone using the recorder would be using the native camera to record their video.

webrtc_streaming_if_necessary on the other hand is a helping hand for the first one. It will activate the special streaming mode for those browsers that have the WebRTC standard implemented in the streaming mode. Specifically this would be iOS and their Safari.

So having those two options set within your code, means that you will have a much smoother experience.

Get Ready to Face the Camera

By default our system is designed to use the default camera. For mobile devices the default is usually the back camera. In most use cases this would also be the best camera to use. In some use cases however the front camera might be better.

For that reason we have parameter called camerafacefront.

By setting it to true, you will set your recorder to first attempt to use the front facing camera, and only if it is not available to attempt to use the back facing camera. It is good to point out that some mobile phones might have 8 cameras on them, however some still only have one.

You would set it up like bellow example:

<ziggeorecorder
	ziggeo-camerafacefront="true"
	...>
</ziggeorecorder>
  • Note that ... within above code are just a placeholder for any other codes you would add and is not otherwise a valid code.

Permissions

We have mentioned something everyone can see and experience through use above. Now it is time to also add a tip about something that might not be as obvious to the person recording themselves, yet it is very important.

Any time you want to access camera, screen or microphone, you have to be allowed to do this first. As a person recording the video, when you are asked you can give permission to one resource (camera or mic) or to all requested resources. This is where things can get a big hairy.

If the same person forbids access, they will need to do additional steps to allow it later, since browsers remember they forbid it last time.

So if you are experiencing things like image capture option being shown on your Android instead of camera capture, or if you see error to allow access, this is what you should look into.

When doing so, the person that had forbidden access at any point should do it at two levels:

  1. App Permissions
  2. Site Settings

The "App Permissions" is page hosting your settings for Chrome, Safari or other browser. It is within the App Permissions that you would be making sure that app has access to camera. This option would block access to entire app, affecting all websites, not just yours.

"Site Settings" are within the app itself. It is usually found within the browser app and are specific to the website. With this one it is possible that camera is working on one website and not on another.

In both cases the settings you want, would be "Ask First" or "Always Allow" or any other permissive / positive setting.

If you are not sure how you can apply some changes or are new in world of video, send us an email today to support@ziggeo.com and let us know how we can be of help to you.

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