RECORDMYDESKTOP(1)RECORDMYDESKTOP(1)NAME
recordMyDesktop - record desktop sessions to an Ogg-Theora-Vorbis file.
SYNOPSISrecordmydesktop [ Options ]^ filename
DESCRIPTION
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 fin‐
ishes.
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 noti‐
fied appropriately and nothing will happen.
Notice also, that if any option is entered you have to specify the out‐
put 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.
EXIT STATUS
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.
OPTIONS
Generic Options:
-h or --help
Print help summary and exit.
--version
Print program version and exit.
--print-config
Print info about options selected during compilation and
exit.
Image Options:
--windowid id_of_window
id of window to be recorded.
--display DISPLAY
Display to connect to.
-x X
Offset in x direction.
-y Y
Offset in y direction.
--width N
Width of recorded window.
--height N
Height of recorded window.
--dummy-cursor color
Draw a dummy cursor, instead of the normal one.Value
of color can be "black" or "white".
--no-cursor
Disable drawing of the cursor.
--no-shared
Disable usage of MIT-shared memory extension (Not
Recommended).
--full-shots
Take full screenshot at every frame(Not recomended!).
--follow-mouse
When this option is enabled, the capture area follows
the mouse cursor. This
is meaningfull only when the selected area is a sub‐
set of the full screen.
This option auto-enables --full-shots.
--quick-subsampling
Do subsampling of the chroma planes by discarding
extra pixels.
--fps N(number>0.0)
A positive number denoting desired framerate.
Sound Options:
--channels N(number>0)
A positive number denoting desired sound channels in
recording.
--freq N(number>0)
A positive number denoting desired sound frequency.
--buffer-size N(number>0)
A positive number denoting the desired sound buffer
size(in frames, when using ALSA or OSS).
--ring-buffer-size N(float number>0)
A float number denoting the desired ring buffer size
(in seconds,when using JACK only).
The overall size of the buffer in bytes will be:
ring_buffer_size * samplerate * number_of_ports *
sizeof(jack_default_audio_sample_t),
where sizeof(jack_default_audio_sample_t) is normally
4.
--device SOUND_DEVICE
Sound device(default hw:0,0 or /dev/dsp, depending on
whether ALSA or OSS is used).
--use-jack port1 port2... portn
Record audio from the specified list of space-sepa‐
rated jack ports.
When using this option, all the rest audio related
ones(except --no-sound) are not taken into account.
--no-sound
Do not record sound.
Encoding Options:
--on-the-fly-encoding
Encode the audio-video data, while recording.
--v_quality n
A number from 0 to 63 for desired encoded video qual‐
ity(default 63).
--v_bitrate n
A number from 45000 to 2000000 for desired encoded
video bitrate(default 45000).
--s_quality n
Desired audio quality(-1 to 10).
Misc Options:
--rescue path_to_data
Encode cache data from a previous session, into an
Ogg/Theora+Vorbis
file. The filename will be the one that was chosen
initially.
Any other option specified with this one will be
implicitly ignored
and recordMyDesktop will exit after the end of the
encoding.
This option was added in recordMyDesktop 0.3.7 and it
will not
work with cache files produced from earlier versions.
When using this option, remember that recordMyDesk‐
top's cache is
not safe, in respect to type-sizes and endianness.
--print-config
Print compilation time options. Currently prints
whether Jack capture is
enabled and if ALSA or OSS is used (may contain more
information
in the future).
--no-wm-check
When a 3d compositing window manager is detected the
program will function as if the
--full-shots option has been specified. This option
disables that
behavior alltogether.
--no-frame
Normally, around the recording area, there is drawn a
frame to assist
the user in identifying what does and what doesn't
get captured.
This frame will also follow around the mouse, when
--follow-mouse
is used. The frame might cause problems for drag and
drop. If you do
not wish this frame to appear, use this option.
--pause-shortcut MOD+KEY
Shortcut that will be used for pausing or unpausing
the recording.
MOD can be any combination of the following modifier
keys:
Control, Shift and Mod1 to Mod5. The modifiers can be
separated
with any character( except SPACE ) or none at all.
KEY can be any key defined in
/usr/include/X11/keysymdef.h without the XK_ prefix.
The list of modifiers must be separated from the key
with a plus('+')
sign.
Default is Control+Mod1+p (Mod1 usually corresponds
to left Alt).
--stop-shortcut MOD+KEY
Shortcut that will be used to stop the recording.
For more, see -pause-shortcut above.
Default is Control+Mod1+s.
--compress-cache
Image data are cached with a light compression.
--workdir DIR
Location where a temporary directory will be created
to hold project files(default /tmp).
--delay n[H|h|M|m]
Number of secs(default),minutes or hours before cap‐
ture starts(number can be float).
--overwrite
If there is already a file with the same name, delete
it.
Default action is to add a number postfix to the new
file.
For example when not specifying a name, if out.ogv
exists,
the new file will be out-1.ogv and if that exists
too, out-2.ogv
and so on (no ad-infinitum though, more like ad-
short-integer...)
-o filename
Name of recorded video(default out.ogv).
If no other option is specified, filename can be given without
the -o switch.
USAGErecordmydesktop [OPTIONS]^filename
ENVIRONMENT
DISPLAY
Display environment variable, specifying X server to con‐
nect to.
NOTES
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 per‐
form a variety of transcoding
operations, either using the graphical interface, or the comman‐
dline 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.
BUGS
Does not record 3d windows, if --full-shots isn't specified.
Saving 65536 files with the same name, will result in upre‐
dictable behavior,
which might manifest as an endless loop, or a segmentation
fault.
AUTHORS
John Varouhakis(johnvarouhakis@gmail.com)
SEE ALSOxwininfo(1)vlc(1)ffmpeg2theora(1)jack_lsp(1)Linux 13/7/2006 RECORDMYDESKTOP(1)
