Standards Compliant Screen Capture in Chrome 72

Octavian -

Chrome 72 was rolled out yesterday with support for navigator.MediaDevices.getDisplayMedia() turned ON by default.

You’re now able to capture and record/broadcast the screen of a user, a running app or a Chrome tab, plugin free, with Chrome 72.

For a quick demo use this demo/sample.

The code is as simple as pasting this in your console:

navigator.MediaDevices.getDisplayMedia({
    video: true
}).then(
    stream => {
        //attach the stream to a video element console.log("Awesome"); 
    },
    error => {
        console.log("Unable to acquire screen capture", error);
    });

We’ve covered the topic in more detail back in November when the feature was introduced in Chrome 70 behind a flag. Here’s a quick recap:

  • Use navigator.MediaDevices.getDisplayMedia() as per the new standard, NOT navigator.getDisplayMedia()
  • Edge, the 1st to support the function, uses **navigator.getDisplayMedia()**as per the older standard
  • Firefox 66 will also support the new function as per the bug report
  • With Chrome you can capture the entire screen, an application window or a Chrome tab
  • Desktop audio capture is not supported yet
  • Capturing DRM content will not work (Netflix in the browser)