Recording Flash Webcam FMS 4.5 to Mp4 results in terrible quality

Question

I have successfully setup recording webcam to FLV using FMS 4.5 developer edition, so I wanted to attempt recording to an Mp4 next. I am doing a silent save of the video file because the goal here is to be able to have these videos playable outside of Flash/FMS. I set the program up to save the Mp4 file generated by FMS, but the quality is terrible. I am seeing green distortion when movement is captured, and heavy pixelation. Here is my test application code that saves the video file after 5 seconds of recording. Can anyone please point out where I am going wrong? Any help is greatly appreciated.

package com 
{
import flash.display.*;
import flash.net.*;
import flash.utils.Timer;
import flash.events.*;
import flash.filesystem.File;
import flash.media.*;

public class Main extends MovieClip 
{
    private var nc:NetConnection;
    private var ns:NetStream;
    private var nsPlayer:NetStream;
    private var vid:Video;
    private var vidPlayer:Video;
    private var cam:Camera;
    private var mic:Microphone;

    private static const LOCAL_VIDEO:String = "myCamera";
    private static const VIDEO_FPS:uint = 30;
    private static const SAVE_FOLDER_NAME:String = "Saved_Videos";
    private static const PATH_TO_FMS:String = "C:/Program Files/Adobe/Flash Media Server 4.5";

    private var timer:Timer = new Timer(5000, 1);

    public function Main()
    {
        addEventListener(Event.ADDED_TO_STAGE, init);
    }

    private function init(evt:Event):void
    {
        removeEventListener(Event.ADDED_TO_STAGE, init);

        nc = new NetConnection(); 
        nc.addEventListener(NetStatusEvent.NET_STATUS, onNetStatus); 
        nc.connect("rtmp://localhost/PublishLive/myCamera");
    }

    function onNetStatus(evt:NetStatusEvent):void
    {
        if(evt.info.code == "NetConnection.Connect.Success")
        { 
            publishCamera(); 
            displayPublishingVideo();

            timer.addEventListener(TimerEvent.TIMER_COMPLETE, timerCompleted);
            timer.start();
        } 
    }

    private function timerCompleted(evt:TimerEvent) 
    { 
        trace("timer completed");           

        timer.stop();

        ns.close();
        ns = null;

        var saveFile:File = new File(PATH_TO_FMS + "/applications/PublishLive/streams/" + LOCAL_VIDEO + "/" + LOCAL_VIDEO + ".mp4");
        var fileName:String = "Video" + ".mp4";

        var dir:File = File.documentsDirectory.resolvePath(SAVE_FOLDER_NAME);
        dir.createDirectory();

        var fileToSave = dir.resolvePath(fileName);

        if(fileToSave.exists)
        {
            fileToSave.deleteFile();
        }

        saveFile.copyTo(fileToSave, true);
    }

    private function publishCamera() 
    {
        var h264Settings:H264VideoStreamSettings = new H264VideoStreamSettings();
        h264Settings.setProfileLevel(H264Profile.BASELINE, H264Level.LEVEL_3_1);

        cam = Camera.getCamera(); 
        cam.setMode(stage.stageWidth, stage.stageHeight, VIDEO_FPS, true);
        cam.setQuality(0, 90);
        cam.setKeyFrameInterval(15);
        cam.setMotionLevel(100);

        mic = Microphone.getMicrophone(); 
        mic.setSilenceLevel(0);
        mic.rate = 11;

        ns = new NetStream(nc);     
        ns.videoStreamSettings = h264Settings;          
        ns.attachCamera(cam); 
        ns.attachAudio(mic);
        ns.publish("mp4:myCamera.mp4", "record"); 
    }

    private function displayPublishingVideo():void 
    { 
        vid = new Video();
        vid.width = stage.stageWidth;
        vid.height = stage.stageHeight;
        vid.attachCamera(cam); 
        addChild(vid);
    }
}

}

Answer 1

Ok, so I am answering my own question. I found the answer here along with the link to the tool to process: adobe help site

You must convert the files after recording them using a post-processing tool so they can be viewed in other video players.

Edit: VLC can actually play the unprocessed file, so I thought it was a quality issue at first!

Answer 2

You could try to change the quality of the video stream VideoStreamSettings.setQuality(bandwidth:int, quality:int) ( link ).

You only set one of the bandwidth or quality values and leave the other to 0. I would try to set bandwidth (measured in bytes per second) to 750000 (6 Mbps), which should be plenty for anything less than full HD.

So, in your case, you could try:

h264Settings.setQuality(750000, 0);