1RECORDMYDESKTOP(1) General Commands Manual RECORDMYDESKTOP(1)
2
6 recordMyDesktop - record desktop sessions to an Ogg-Theora-Vorbis file.
7
11 recordmydesktop [ Options ]^ filename
12
14 recordMyDesktop produces a file(default out.ogv) that contains
15 a video and audio recording
16 of a linux desktop session. The default behavior of recording is to
17 mark areas that have changed(through libxdamage)
18 and update the frame. This behavior can be changed (option --full-shots
19 ) to produce a more accurate result
20 or capture windows that do not generate events on change(windows with
21 accelerated 3d context)
22 but this will notably increase the workload.
23 recordMyDesktop doesn't have a commandline interface.
24 After startup, it can be controled only through the following signals:
25 SIGUSR1 causes the program to pause if it's currently recording, and
26 vice-versa.
27 SIGTERM causes normal termination of the recording.
28 SIGINT also causes normal termination.
29 SIGABRT terminates the program and removes the specified output file.
30 This signals can also be delivered on the application, with the use of
31 shortcuts.
32 See -pause-shortcut and -stop-shortcut , on the Misc. section of
33 Options bellow.
34 A typical scenario of recording can be a command as simple as:
38 ~$ recordmydesktop
39 which will produce a fullscreen recording named out.ogv
40 while a command like:
41 ~$ recordmydesktop foo.ogv
42 will write output to foo.ogv
43 Since version 0.3, encoding will happen right after the recording fin‐
44 ishes.
45 While this behavior saves a lot of CPU, you can revert to the old one
46 by entering the --on-the-fly-encoding switch.
47 To specify a region for recording you can type this:
48 ~$ recordmydesktop -x X_pos -y Y_pos -width WIDTH -height HEIGHT -o
49 foo.ogv
50 where X_pos and Y_pos specify the offset in pixels from the upper left
51 corner of your screen and WIDTH and HEIGHT the size of the window to be
52 recorded(again in pixels).
53 If the area extends beyond your current resolution, you will be noti‐
54 fied appropriately and nothing will happen.
55 Notice also, that if any option is entered you have to specify the out‐
56 put file with the -o switch.
57 If you try to save under a filename that already exists, the name will
58 be post-fixed with a number (incremented if that name exists already)
59 To normally end a recording you can press ctl-c.
60 (which will send a SIGINT to the program).
61 For further manipulation of the end result look at the OPTIONS and
62 NOTES sections.
63
65 0 is success
66 Non-zero means an error occurred, which is printed in stderr.
67 The following error codes indicate the nature of the error:
68 1 Error while parsing the arguments.
69 2 Initializing the encoder failed(either vorbis or theora).
70 3 Could not open/configure sound card.
71 4 Xdamage extension not present.
72 5 Shared memory extension not present.
73 6 Xfixes extension not present.
74 7 XInitThreads failed.
75 8 No $DISPLAY environment variable and none specified as argument.
76 9 Cannot connect to Xserver.
77 10 Color depth is not 32, 24 or 16bpp.
78 11 Improper window specification.
79 12 Cannot attach shared memory to proccess.
80 13 Cannot open file for writting.
81 14 Cannot load the Jack library (dlopen/dlsym error on libjack.so).
82 15 Cannot create new client.
83 16 Cannot activate client.
84 17 Port registration/connection failure.
85
87 Generic Options:
88 -h or --help
90 Print help summary and exit.
91 --version
93 Print program version and exit.
94 --print-config
96 Print info about options selected during compilation and
97 exit.
98 Image Options:
100 -windowid id_of_window
102 id of window to be recorded.
103 -display DISPLAY
105 Display to connect to.
106 -x X
108 Offset in x direction.
109 -y Y
111 Offset in y direction.
112 -width N
114 Width of recorded window.
115 -height N
117 Height of recorded window.
118 -dummy-cursor color
121 Draw a dummy cursor, instead of the normal one.Value
122 of color can be "black" or "white".
123 --no-cursor
125 Disable drawing of the cursor.
126 --no-shared
128 Disable usage of MIT-shared memory extension (Not
129 Recommended).
130 --full-shots
133 Take full screenshot at every frame(Not recomended!).
134 --follow-mouse
136 When this option is enabled, the capture area follows
137 the mouse cursor. This
138 is meaningfull only when the selected area is a sub‐
139 set of the full screen.
140 This option auto-enables --full-shots.
141 --quick-subsampling
143 Do subsampling of the chroma planes by discarding
144 extra pixels.
145 -fps N(number>0.0)
147 A positive number denoting desired framerate.
148 Sound Options:
150 -channels N(number>0)
152 A positive number denoting desired sound channels in
153 recording.
154 -freq N(number>0)
156 A positive number denoting desired sound frequency.
157 -buffer-size N(number>0)
159 A positive number denoting the desired sound buffer
160 size(in frames, when using ALSA or OSS).
161 -ring-buffer-size N(float number>0)
163 A float number denoting the desired ring buffer size
164 (in seconds,when using JACK only).
165 The overall size of the buffer in bytes will be:
166 ring_buffer_size * samplerate * number_of_ports *
167 sizeof(jack_default_audio_sample_t),
168 where sizeof(jack_default_audio_sample_t) is normally
169 4.
170 -device SOUND_DEVICE
172 Sound device(default hw:0,0 or /dev/dsp, depending on
173 whether ALSA or OSS is used).
174 -use-jack port1 port2... portn
176 Record audio from the specified list of space-sepa‐
177 rated jack ports.
178 When using this option, all the rest audio related
179 ones(except --no-sound) are not taken into account.
180 --no-sound
182 Do not record sound.
183 Encoding Options:
185 --on-the-fly-encoding
187 Encode the audio-video data, while recording.
188 -v_quality n
190 A number from 0 to 63 for desired encoded video qual‐
191 ity(default 63).
192 -v_bitrate n
194 A number from 45000 to 2000000 for desired encoded
195 video bitrate(default 45000).
196 -s_quality n
198 Desired audio quality(-1 to 10).
199 Misc Options:
201 -rescue path_to_data
203 Encode cache data from a previous session, into an
204 Ogg/Theora+Vorbis
205 file. The filename will be the one that was chosen
206 initially.
207 Any other option specified with this one will be
208 implicitly ignored
209 and recordMyDesktop will exit after the end of the
210 encoding.
211 This option was added in recordMyDesktop 0.3.7 and it
212 will not
213 work with cache files produced from earlier versions.
214 When using this option, remember that
215 recordMyDesktop's cache is not safe, in respect to type-
217 sizes and endianness.
218 --print-config
220 Print compilation time options. Currently prints
221 whether Jack capture is
222 enabled and if ALSA or OSS is used (may contain more
223 information
224 in the future).
225 --no-wm-check
227 When a 3d compositing window manager is detected the
228 program will function as if the
229 --full-shots option has been specified. This option
230 disables that
231 behavior alltogether.
232 --no-frame
234 Normally, around the recording area, there is drawn a
235 frame to assist
236 the user in identifying what does and what doesn't
237 get captured.
238 This frame will also follow around the mouse, when
239 --follow-mouse
240 is used. If you do not wish this frame to appear, use
241 this option.
242 -pause-shortcut MOD+KEY
244 Shortcut that will be used for pausing or unpausing
245 the recording.
246 MOD can be any combination of the following modifier
247 keys:
248 Control, Shift and Mod1 to Mod5. The modifiers can be
249 separated
250 with any character( except SPACE ) or none at all.
251 KEY can be any key defined in
252 /usr/include/X11/keysymdef.h without the XK_ prefix.
253 The list of modifiers must be separated from the key
254 with a plus('+')
255 sign.
256 Default is Control+Mod1+p (Mod1 usually corresponds
257 to left Alt).
258 -stop-shortcut MOD+KEY
261 Shortcut that will be used to stop the recording.
262 For more, see -pause-shortcut above.
263 Default is Control+Mod1+s.
264 --compress-cache
266 Image data are cached with a light compression.
267 -workdir DIR
269 Location where a temporary directory will be created
270 to hold project files(default /tmp).
271 -delay n[H|h|M|m]
273 Number of secs(default),minutes or hours before cap‐
274 ture starts(number can be float).
275 --overwrite
277 If there is already a file with the same name, delete
278 it.
279 Default action is to add a number postfix to the new
280 file.
281 For example when not specifying a name, if out.ogv
282 exists,
283 the new file will be out.ogv.1 and if that exists
284 too, out.ogv.2
285 and so on (no ad-infinitum though, more like ad-
286 short-integer...)
287 -o filename
289 Name of recorded video(default out.ogv).
290 If no other option is specified, filename can be given without
295 the -o switch.
296
298 recordmydesktop [OPTIONS]^filename
299
301 DISPLAY
302 Display environment variable, specifying X server to con‐
303 nect to.
304
306 Recording a window using the -windowid option, doesn't track
307 the window itself, but the region that it covers.
308 Also when using that option the -x,-y,-width and -height options
309 are relative to the specified window area.
310 An easy way to find out the id of a window, is by using the
311 xwininfo program.
312 Running a command like :
313 xwininfo |grep "Window id:"|sed -e "s/xwininfo\:\ Window id:\ //
314 ;s/\ .*//"
315 will give you only the id of the window(which should look like
316 this: 0x4800005)
317 More conviniently you can put all that in the command that
318 launches recordMyDesktop like this:
319 ~$recordmydesktop -windowid $(xwininfo |grep "Window id:"|sed -e
320 "s/xwininfo\:\ Window id:\ // ;s/\ .*//" )
321 Also, the lower quality you select on a video recording (
322 -v_quality option), the highest CPU-power that you will need.
323 So if you are doing the encoding on the fly ,it's better to
324 start with default values and manipulate the end-result with
325 another program.
326 An excellent converter is the vlc media player, which can per‐
327 form a variety of transcoding
328 operations, either using the graphical interface, or the comman‐
329 dline for more flexibility.
330 vlc is a complex piece of software, so you should consult it's
331 documentation, before
332 using it.
333 An example follows, which will resize a recording named out.ogv
334 to 512x384:
335 vlc -I dummy out.ogv vlc:quit --sout "#transcode{ vcodec = theo,
336 width = 512, height = 384 }:duplicate{ dst = std{ access = file,
337 mux=ogg, dst = \"out_512x384.ogv\" }}"
338 If you wish to change the video quality you can append the
339 --sout-theora-quality=n, with n in the range [1,10] e.g:
340 vlc -I dummy out.ogv vlc:quit --sout "#transcode{ vcodec = theo,
341 width = 512, height = 384 }:duplicate{ dst = std{ access = file,
342 mux=ogg, dst = \"out_512x384.ogv\" }}" --sout-theora-quality=3
343 which will give a file of a video quality 18 (in a range of
344 0-63), thus appropriate for web-publishing.
345 Another option is ffmpeg2theora , which despite its name is also
346 a theora to theora converter.
347 Changing the quality of a recordng with it, can be as simple as
348 :
349 ffmpeg2theora infile.ogv -v 3 -a 4 -o outfile.ogv
350 It can even perform resizing on the size of the recording, or
351 change the overall duration.
352
354 Does not record 3d windows, if --full-shots isn't specified.
355 Saving 65536 files with the same name, will result in upre‐
356 dictable behavior,
357 which might manifest as an endless loop, or a segmentation
358 fault.
359
361 John Varouhakis(johnvarouhakis@gmail.com)
362
364 xwininfo(1)
365 vlc(1)
366 ffmpeg2theora(1)
367 jack_lsp(1)
368Linux 13/7/2006 RECORDMYDESKTOP(1)