| RECORDMYDESKTOP(1) | General Commands Manual | RECORDMYDESKTOP(1) |
recordMyDesktop - record desktop sessions to an Ogg-Theora-Vorbis file.
recordmydesktop [ Options ]^ filename
recordMyDesktop produces a file(default out.ogv) that contains a
video and audio recording
of a linux desktop session. The default behavior of recording is to mark areas
that have changed(through libxdamage)
and update the frame. This behavior can be changed (option --full-shots
) to produce a more accurate result
or capture windows that do not generate events on change(windows with
accelerated 3d context)
but this will notably increase the workload.
recordMyDesktop doesn't have a commandline interface.
After startup, it can be controled only through the following signals:
SIGUSR1 causes the program to pause if it's currently recording, and
vice-versa.
SIGTERM causes normal termination of the recording.
SIGINT also causes normal termination.
SIGABRT terminates the program and removes the specified output file.
This signals can also be delivered on the application, with the use of
shortcuts.
See --pause-shortcut and --stop-shortcut , on the Misc.
section of Options bellow.
A typical scenario of recording can be a command as simple as:
~$ recordmydesktop
which will produce a fullscreen recording named out.ogv
while a command like:
~$ recordmydesktop foo.ogv
will write output to foo.ogv
Since version 0.3, encoding will happen right after the recording finishes.
While this behavior saves a lot of CPU, you can revert to the old one by
entering the --on-the-fly-encoding switch.
To specify a region for recording you can type this:
~$ recordmydesktop -x X_pos -y Y_pos --width WIDTH --height HEIGHT -o
foo.ogv
where X_pos and Y_pos specify the offset in pixels from the upper left
corner of your screen and WIDTH and HEIGHT the size of the window to be
recorded(again in pixels).
If the area extends beyond your current resolution, you will be notified
appropriately and nothing will happen.
Notice also, that if any option is entered you have to specify the output file
with the -o switch.
If you try to save under a filename that already exists, the name will be
post-fixed with a number (incremented if that name exists already)
To normally end a recording you can press ctl-c.
(which will send a SIGINT to the program).
For further manipulation of the end result look at the OPTIONS and
NOTES sections.
0 is success
Non-zero means an error occurred, which is printed in stderr.
The following error codes indicate the nature of the error:
1 Error while parsing the arguments.
2 Initializing the encoder failed(either vorbis or theora).
3 Could not open/configure sound card.
4 Xdamage extension not present.
5 Shared memory extension not present.
6 Xfixes extension not present.
7 XInitThreads failed.
8 No $DISPLAY environment variable and none specified as argument.
9 Cannot connect to Xserver.
10 Color depth is not 32, 24 or 16bpp.
11 Improper window specification.
12 Cannot attach shared memory to proccess.
13 Cannot open file for writting.
14 Cannot load the Jack library ( UNUSED SINCE 0.3.8 ).
15 Cannot create new client.
16 Cannot activate client.
17 Port registration/connection failure.
Generic Options:
Image Options:
Sound Options:
Encoding Options:
Misc Options:
If no other option is specified, filename can be given without the
-o switch.
Recording a window using the --windowid option, doesn't track the
window itself, but the region that it covers.
Also when using that option the -x,-y,--width and --height options are
relative to the specified window area.
An easy way to find out the id of a window, is by using the xwininfo
program.
Running a command like :
xwininfo | awk ´/Window id:/ {print $4}´
will give you only the id of the window(which should look like this:
0x4800005)
More conviniently you can put all that in the command that launches
recordMyDesktop like this:
~$recordmydesktop --windowid $(xwininfo | awk ´/Window id:/ {print
$4}´)
Also, the lower quality you select on a video recording ( -v_quality
option), the highest CPU-power that you will need.
So if you are doing the encoding on the fly ,it's better to start with
default values and manipulate the end-result with another program.
An excellent converter is the vlc media player, which can perform a
variety of transcoding
operations, either using the graphical interface, or the commandline for more
flexibility.
vlc is a complex piece of software, so you should consult it's documentation,
before
using it.
An example follows, which will resize a recording named out.ogv to 512x384:
vlc -I dummy out.ogv vlc:quit --sout "#transcode{ vcodec = theo, width
= 512, height = 384 }:duplicate{ dst = std{ access = file, mux=ogg, dst =
\"out_512x384.ogv\" }}"
If you wish to change the video quality you can append the
--sout-theora-quality=n, with n in the range [1,10]
e.g:
vlc -I dummy out.ogv vlc:quit --sout "#transcode{ vcodec = theo, width
= 512, height = 384 }:duplicate{ dst = std{ access = file, mux=ogg, dst =
\"out_512x384.ogv\" }}" --sout-theora-quality=3
which will give a file of a video quality 18 (in a range of 0-63), thus
appropriate for web-publishing.
Another option is ffmpeg2theora , which despite its name is also a
theora to theora converter.
Changing the quality of a recordng with it, can be as simple as :
ffmpeg2theora infile.ogv -v 3 -a 4 -o outfile.ogv
It can even perform resizing on the size of the recording, or change the
overall duration.
Does not record 3d windows, if --full-shots isn't specified.
Saving 65536 files with the same name, will result in upredictable behavior,
which might manifest as an endless loop, or a segmentation fault.
John Varouhakis(johnvarouhakis@gmail.com)
| 13/7/2006 | Linux |