Live Recording

Set up auto-record monitors, hardware-accelerated compression, and live preview thumbnails.

How It Works

StreamStash continuously monitors TikTok creators you've added and automatically starts recording when they go live. The entire process is hands-off — set it up once and let it run.

• The monitor cycle runs every 3 minutes
• Up to 12 users are checked per cycle in parallel
• Detection is lightweight — no browser window or resource-heavy polling
• Recordings start within seconds of a live being detected

Adding a Monitor

1. From the Dashboard: Enter a TikTok username in the Add User form, check the Monitor option, and click Lookup.
2. From the Monitors page: Use the add form at the top to add a username directly.
3. The creator will appear in the monitors list with a Live or Idle status badge.

The Monitor Dashboard

The Monitors page shows all your tracked creators with:

• Live/Idle status — real-time indicator
• Last seen — when they were last detected live
• Weekly stats — number of recordings this week
• Preview thumbnails — live snapshots captured every 10 seconds during recording

Recording Process

When a live stream is detected, StreamStash:

1. Creates a recording entry in the database
2. Resolves the best available stream URL automatically
3. Starts FFmpeg to record the stream to a .ts file
4. Captures preview thumbnails every 10 seconds
5. Monitors for stream corruption (frozen frames, solid colours)
6. Compresses the recording when complete (if enabled)

Stream Quality Priority

StreamStash always attempts the highest quality first:

FULL_HD (1080p) → HD (720p) → SD1 (480p) → SD2 (360p) → worst available

Compression

Live recordings can be automatically compressed after completion. Configure this in Settings.

Quality Settings

The CRF/CQ slider (range 16–35) controls the quality-size tradeoff:

• 16–20 — near-lossless, large files
• 20–24 — recommended for most users
• 24–30 — smaller files, some quality loss
• 30+ — aggressive compression, visible quality loss

Corruption Detection

StreamStash automatically detects corrupted recordings by analysing preview frames for:

• Frozen/duplicate frames
• Solid black, grey, purple, or green frames
• Vertical striping artifacts

If corruption is detected (6+ bad frames in a rolling window of 10), the recording is flagged.

Rate Limit Protection

The monitor system includes built-in protections:

• 5-minute cooldown after a failed check to avoid hammering the API
• 90-second minimum between rechecks of the same user
• 2-second stagger (with jitter) between parallel checks
• Automatic backoff on HTTP 403/429 responses, up to 5 minutes
• Username validation — after 3 consecutive offline results, the account is re-verified and an alert is sent if it appears deleted

Discord Notifications

Set up a Recordings webhook in Settings to get Discord notifications when:

• A live stream is detected
• A recording starts
• A recording completes (with duration and file size)
• A recording fails