Recordings

Every broadcast is recorded. A few minutes after it ends — roughly a minute per hour of broadcast, longer for 4K — the recording is ready as one MP4 file at the top quality, with its audio. Recordings are included in the stream-hour price.

Getting a recording

Ask the API for a download link:

• One broadcast: GET /v1/streams/{playback_id}/recording answers with the recording’s state and, once it is ready, a download_url. See Recordings in the API reference.
• Many at once: GET /v1/recordings lists every recording on your account, the most recently ended first, each ready one with its own download_url. Add customer_ref= to list one customer’s, or call GET /v1/customers/{customer_ref}/recordings. Results come in pages; pass the next_cursor you were given to get the next one.

A download link is an ordinary HTTPS address. Anything that can fetch a URL can use it: a browser, curl, a video platform’s “import from URL”, a storage transfer job. Downloads are fast and carry no per-gigabyte charge.

How long a link lasts

A link works for one hour by default. Ask for a longer one with link_ttl, in seconds, from 60 up to 604,800 (seven days):

curl -H "Authorization: Bearer $CARDINAL_API_KEY" \
  "https://api.cardinalstreaming.com/v1/recordings?customer_ref=grace-church&link_ttl=86400"

A link never outlives the recording: if the file is due to be deleted sooner, the link expires then. Anyone holding a link can download the file until it expires, so give a long-lived link only to systems you trust, and ask again for a fresh link whenever you need one.

Partners and their customers

If you resell Cardinal, tag each stream with your own customer_ref when you book it, and you can list or download any of your customers’ recordings, for example to help one of them with support. A recording is only ever visible to the account whose stream made it: no account can list, download or delete another account’s recordings, and asking for one answers 404, the same as a recording that does not exist.

Keeping and deleting

Recordings are kept for 30 days after they are ready and then deleted, along with the live segments they were made from. Deletion is permanent: we do not archive recordings, so download any you want to keep.

Delete one sooner with DELETE /v1/streams/{playback_id}/recording once the stream has ended. The deletion runs in the background: the answer says deleting, then deleted once every file is gone, and calling it again is safe. It cannot be undone, and download links already handed out stop working once the files are gone.

When an account is closed, its API keys stop working, so download recordings before closing it.