best video screen capture app.

[drhadidy]

what is the best video screen capture app. out there
i want an app that can capture video&audio together from the whole screen or a selected area...but to capture the video and audio together not only the video... and from the screen directly not from TV card for example or the cam(like tvtime)
and to have the output in .avi or .mp4 if possible...
thx alot
btw... the easier in use the better...im not a pro

[ivanovnegro]

I would say recordMyDesktop is not bad, I like it and it does all you want and it is not too difficult to use.
http://recordmydesktop.sourceforge.net/about.php

[rich2005]

I think this has been covered before.

recordmydesktop (and gui...) does work *but* saves to ogv format, great quality but a pita to edit.

There is a nice front end for ffmpeg called qx11grab and I do wish it would be included in the repo but for me not a big deal.

So, best bet is ffmpeg on the command line. I don't usually capture with sound, since if you are going to edit the video, best to mux the audio after but just tried this and it works here.

Open a terminal and use this command

ffmpeg -f x11grab -xerror -r 15 -s 960x720 -i :0.0 -qscale 5 -f alsa -i hw:0,0 -ar 44100 out.avi

If it works great, and you can look at adjusting the parameters, if not, nothing lost, maybe have a look at VLC which has a screen capture option.

[kalle123]

...could also give XVidCap a try.

It is in the repos.

cu KH

[coffeetime]

Xvidcap from our repos does not support multiframe, thus it's useless. What about Recorditnow? It uses RecordMyDesktop, but it has a lot of features packed on top of RecordItNow, or perhaps Istanbul..

[AndrzejL]

I think this has been covered before.

recordmydesktop (and gui...) does work *but* saves to ogv format, great quality but a pita to edit.

No it isn't. All You need is a 1 - read one - mencoder command to convert ogv to fully usable avi file. I am using qt-recordmydesktop about 10 times a day. Mencoder converts it to avi. Avidemux allows me to edit it.

This will convert almost any video to AVI:

mencoder /path/to/input.file -o /path/to/file.avi -ovc lavc -oac pcm

Yes its this simple.

Now about recordmydesktop fix:

Add this --v_bitrate 2000000 in the Qt/Gtk-recordmydesktop Advanced options on the Misc tab in the Extra Options box to make the recordings quality / speed perfect.

Andy

[T6]

kdenlive has a option but never tried

[rich2005]

@AndrzejL

I consider having to convert from one format to another in order to edit, a pita.

At least with ffmpeg it is straight to .avi or mpeg if you want, hence straight into Avidemux. The captured footage has keyframes every 12, so is reasonably accurate. When all finished, *then* the final step might be to convert to a more compact format.

Here is one, made in PCLOS a couple of days ago

grey2

I've tried most, all have some snags along the way. Not tried Istanbul, the 'saves to ogg' format in the description put me off.

[drhadidy]

Open a terminal and use this command

ffmpeg -f x11grab -xerror -r 15 -s 960x720 -i :0.0 -qscale 5 -f alsa -i hw:0,0 -ar 44100 out.avi

If it works great, and you can look at adjusting the parameters, if not, nothing lost, maybe have a look at VLC which has a screen capture option.

tried that command and got the following...
[mo@localhost ~]$ ffmpeg -f x11grab -xerror -r 15 -s 960x720 -i :0.0 -qscale 5 -f alsa -i hw:0,0 -ar 44100 out.avi
FFmpeg version 0.6.1, Copyright (c) 2000-2010 the FFmpeg developers
  built on Nov 22 2010 11:58:13 with gcc 4.4.1
  configuration: --prefix=/usr --enable-shared --libdir=/usr/lib --shlibdir=/usr/lib --incdir=/usr/include --disable-stripping --enable-postproc --enable-gpl --enable-pthreads --enable-libtheora --enable-libvorbis --disable-encoder=vorbis --enable-libvpx --enable-x11grab --enable-runtime-cpudetect --enable-libdc1394 --enable-libschroedinger --enable-librtmp --enable-libmp3lame --enable-libfaad --enable-libopencore-amrnb --enable-libopencore-amrwb --enable-version3 --enable-libx264 --enable-nonfree --enable-libfaac --enable-libxvid
  libavutil     50.15. 1 / 50.15. 1
  libavcodec    52.72. 2 / 52.72. 2
  libavformat   52.64. 2 / 52.64. 2
  libavdevice   52. 2. 0 / 52. 2. 0
  libswscale     0.11. 0 /  0.11. 0
  libpostproc   51. 2. 0 / 51. 2. 0
[x11grab @ 0x9cc8420]device: :0.0 -> display: :0.0 x: 0 y: 0 width: 960 height: 720
[x11grab @ 0x9cc8420]shared memory extension  found
[x11grab @ 0x9cc8420]Estimating duration from bitrate, this may be inaccurate
Input #0, x11grab, from ':0.0':
  Duration: N/A, start: 1300960819.535786, bitrate: 331775 kb/s
    Stream #0.0: Video: rawvideo, bgra, 960x720, 331775 kb/s, 15 tbr, 1000k tbn, 15 tbc
[alsa @ 0x9cd4c20]cannot set channel count to 1 (Invalid argument)
hw:0,0: Input/output error                                                                       
[mo@localhost ~]$


not mentioning that nothing happened after that...

[drhadidy]

Xvidcap from our repos does not support multiframe, thus it's useless. What about Recorditnow? It uses RecordMyDesktop, but it has a lot of features packed on top of RecordItNow, or perhaps Istanbul..

didnt find recorditnow in repos!!! and when tried RecordMyDesktop i could get a good video but the audio was soooo weak and non synched...
i even tried the

Now about recordmydesktop fix:

Add this --v_bitrate 2000000 in the Qt/Gtk-recordmydesktop Advanced options on the Misc tab in the Extra Options box to make the recordings quality / speed perfect.

didnt change anything and still got very weak unhearable sound which was non synched with the video....
what can i do??

[AndrzejL]

@AndrzejL

I consider having to convert from one format to another in order to edit, a pita.

Good luck with Your recordings .

Xvidcap from our repos does not support multiframe, thus it's useless. What about Recorditnow? It uses RecordMyDesktop, but it has a lot of features packed on top of RecordItNow, or perhaps Istanbul..

didnt find recorditnow in repos!!! and when tried RecordMyDesktop i could get a good video but the audio was soooo weak and non synched...
i even tried the

Now about recordmydesktop fix:

Add this --v_bitrate 2000000 in the Qt/Gtk-recordmydesktop Advanced options on the Misc tab in the Extra Options box to make the recordings quality / speed perfect.

didnt change anything and still got very weak unhearable sound which was non synched with the video....
what can i do??

The sync was always a problem. Heard of it from Rolf - owner of MeetTheGimp.org podcast site. He actually bought commercial video recording suite for linux  to record his podcast.

I bet that by messing around with the options You can get better results. You need to google it and find out more.

Andy

[Was_Just19]

I think this has been covered before.

recordmydesktop (and gui...) does work *but* saves to ogv format, great quality but a pita to edit.

There is a nice front end for ffmpeg called qx11grab and I do wish it would be included in the repo but for me not a big deal.

......

I had a look at that front-end .....  xrecord it was called ........  and it appeared to only record from webcam and not the destop.

Did I miss something or maybe pick up the wrong 'front-end'?

[rich2005]

It looks like the sound configuration is wrong for your system, Who knows? You could try video only just to see if that works. In a terminal run.
ffmpeg -f x11grab -xerror -r 15 -s 960x720 -i :0.0+80,60 -vcodec mpeg4 -b 1000 -qscale 5 -bt 256k -y out.avi
should output to out.avi in your home folder.

for sound card details, well... in a terminal try
aplay -l
and see what lists, but unless you are keen, probably best to forget ffmpeg on a commandline.

the front end I referred to was qx11grab.
http://qx11grab.hjcms.de/
*Not* PCLOS approved, not in the repo but maybe I will ask for it. Looks like this
http://imgur.com/W8x0t
Thats the configuration, and the little menu it puts in the toolbar.

Guess you are stuck with recordmydesktop

[Was_Just19]

I have Pulse audio installed and working and used this command --

Code: [Select]

ffmpeg -f alsa -ac 2 -i pulse -f x11grab -r 10 -s 1680x1050 -i :0.0 -acodec pcm_s16le -vcodec libx264 -vpre lossless_ultrafast -threads 0 output.avi
The sound playback on most apps was very bad, yet on others it was low but audible.

My present graphics card is very challenged () but I still got a video even though it was jerky of course.

Just the reason for the different audio output on the different apps needs to be sorted for me .......  as well as getting a better graphics card!  Maybe some levels in PulseVolCtrl are at fault .....

regards.

[rich2005]

I don't use pulse audio in PCLOS but I do have a 64 bit machine that does and the following is a bit simpler than your command line. Change the size "-s WWWxHHH" to suit.

ffmpeg -f x11grab -xerror -s 980x720 -r 15 -i :0.0 -qscale 5 -f alsa -i pulse -ar 44100 out.avi

or you could try

ffmpeg -f x11grab -s wsxga -r 15 -i :0.0 -qscale 5 -f alsa -i pulse -ar 44100 out.avi

the wsxga is an alias  = 1600x1050.  Open a terminal then 'man ffmpeg' and towards the end are pre-set values.
1680x1050 which I assume is your monitor size is a big capture area, but the jerkiness might be your frame rate of 10. IMHO 15 fps is just ok. Or as you say it might be your graphics card.

I found that low volume is more a function of the sound card than anything else, my beloved & ancient sound blaster died some time ago, replaced it with an Creative Audigy. Lots more features but poor volume, had to make an amplifier to boost mic input.

Keep trying, great thing about linux is lots of different ways to do anything.