Ubuntu Manpage: recordMyDesktop - record desktop sessions to an Ogg Theora video file with Vorbis audio

Provided by: recordmydesktop_0.4.0-1build2_amd64

Name

       recordMyDesktop - record desktop sessions to an Ogg Theora video file with Vorbis audio

Synopsis

       recordmydesktop

       recordmydesktop output-filename

       recordmydesktop --rescue path-to-data

       recordmydesktop {image-options|sound-options|encoding-options|miscellaneous-options| ... }

       recordmydesktop {-h|--help}

       recordmydesktop --version

       recordmydesktop --print-config

Description

recordMyDesktop produces a file (out.ogv by default) containing a video and audio recording of an X
Window System session.

For a typical scenario, recording your session is as simple as
$ recordmydesktop
which will produce a full-screen recording named out.ogv in the current working directory, while the
command
$ recordmydesktop ../foo
will save the recording in foo.ogv in the parent of the current working directory.

To end a recording, press Control+C. (This action sends a SIGINT to recordMyDesktop.)

To designate a region of the screen for recording you can type this:
$ recordmydesktop -x x-pos -y y-pos --width w --height h -o foo.ogv
where x-pos and y-pos specify the offset in pixels from the upper-left corner of your screen and w and h
the size of the region to be recorded, again in pixels. If the area extends beyond your current
resolution, you will be notified appropriately and nothing will happen.

Note: If any options are used, and you wish to use an output filename other than the default, you must
specify it with the -o option.

Since version 0.3 of recordMyDesktop, encoding is done immediately after recording finishes. While this
behavior saves a lot of CPU, you can revert to the old one by specifying the --on-the-fly-encoding
option.

The default behavior of recording is to mark areas that have changed (as determined by the X Damage
extension) and update the frame. This behavior can be changed through the option --full-shots to produce
a more accurate result or capture windows that do not generate X events on change, such as windows with
accelerated 3D context, but this will notably increase the workload.

recordMyDesktop doesn't have a user interface in the conventional sense. After startup, it can be
controlled only through the following signals:

SIGUSR1
causes the program to pause if it's currently recording, and vice-versa.

SIGTERM
SIGINT cause normal termination of the recording.

SIGABRT
terminates the program and removes the output file.

These signals can also be delivered to the application through the configuration of keyboard shortcuts.
See --pause-shortcut and --stop-shortcut in the Miscellaneous subsection of the Options section below.

For further manipulation of the end result, consult the Options and Notes sections below.

Options

If and only if no options are specified, recordMyDesktop accepts a single operand which it interprets as
an output filename.

recordMyDesktop accepts many command-line options. The following discussion groups them into families.

General
-h or --help
Print a summary of usage and exit.

--version
Print program version and exit.

--print-config
Print information about options selected during compilation and exit. Currently indicates whether
Jack capture is enabled and if ALSA or OSS is used; may report more information in the future.

Image
--windowid wid
Record the region of the screen corresponding to the X window wid at the time recordMyDesktop
starts. Recording a window doesn't track the window itself, but instead the region that it
covers; if the window is moved, recordMyDesktop does not follow it. If the window is obscured by
another, the obscuring window's contents within the recording region are captured. An X client's
window ID can be obtained with the xwininfo(1) program; see the Notes section below.

--display x-display
Connect to the X Window System display at x-display. By default, the value of the DISPLAY
environment variable are used to the determine the display.

-x x-offset
Restrict the recording region to start at x-offset pixels from the left edge of the screen or the
X window ID designated with --windowid. The default is 0.

-y y-offset
Restrict the recording region to start at y-offset pixels from the top edge of the screen or the X
window ID designated with --windowid. The default is 0.

--width w
Restrict the recording region to w pixels in width. The default is the full width of the screen
or the X window ID designated with --windowid.

--height h
Restrict the recording region to h pixels in height. The default is the full height of the screen
or the X window ID designated with --windowid.

--dummy-cursor color
Draw a dummy cursor instead of the normal one. The given color must be a string, either “black”
or “white”.

--no-cursor
Disable drawing of the cursor.

--no-shared
Do not use the MIT shared memory extension (MIT-SHM). Use of this option is not recommended.

--full-shots
Take a full screenshot at every frame. Use of this option is not recommended.

--follow-mouse
When this option is enabled, the capture area follows the mouse cursor. This is meaningful only
when the selected area is a subset of the full screen. This option implies --full-shots.

--quick-subsampling
Sub-sample chroma planes by discarding extra pixels.

--fps n
Attempt to capture n frames per second, where n is positive and may be an integral or floating-
point number. The achievable frame rate is limited by your system's hardware and workload. The
default is 15.

Sound
--channels n
Record up to n channels, where n is a positive integer. The default is 2 (stereo).

--freq n
Record at a sample rate of n hertz, where n is a positive integer. The default is 22050 (22.05
kHz).

--buffer-size n
Buffer n bytes of sound data when using the ALSA or OSS sound systems, where n is a positive
integer. The default is 4096 (4 kiB).

--ring-buffer-size n
Set the size of the JACK ring buffer in seconds, where n is a positive floating-point number. The
default is 3.0.

The total size of the buffer in bytes can be expressed as a C language expression:
ring_buffer_size * sample_rate * number_of_ports
* sizeof(jack_default_audio_sample_t),
where sizeof(jack_default_audio_sample_t) is normally 4.

--device sound-device
Capture audio from sound-device. The default is default or /dev/dsp, depending on whether ALSA or
OSS is used, respectively.

--use-jack port ...
Record audio from the specified list of space-separated JACK ports. When using this option, all
other audio-related options (except --no-sound) are ignored.

--no-sound
Do not record sound.

Encoding
--on-the-fly-encoding
Encode the audio/video data while recording. The default is to defer encoding until after
recording is complete.

--v_quality n
Set the desired video quality to n, an integer between 0 and 63 inclusive; higher is better. The
default is 63. See the Notes section below.

--v_bitrate n
Set the desired bit rate of the encoded video to n bits per second. The accepted range of n is
between 0 and 200,000,000 inclusive; the default is 0. (The thousands separator is shown here for
clarity; do not use it in the option argument.)

--s_quality n
Set the desired audio quality to n, an integer between -1 and 10 inclusive; higher is better. The
default is 10.

Miscellaneous
--rescue path-to-data
Encode cache data from a previous session into an Ogg Theora 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, note that recordMyDesktop's cache is not safe with respect to data type sizes
and endianness. To locate the cached data, see the --workdir option below.

--no-wm-check
When a 3D compositing window manager is detected, the program will function as if the --full-shots
option had been specified. This option disables the check.

--no-frame
Normally, a frame is drawn around the recording region to assist the user to identify what does
and doesn't get captured. When the --follow-mouse is given, this frame will also follow the
pointer around. However, the frame might cause problems for drag-and-drop operations. If you do
not wish this frame to appear, use this option.

--pause-shortcut mod+key
Designate a key combination to toggle the pause state of the recording. mod can be any
combination of the following modifier keys: Control, Shift, and Mod1 to Mod5. The modifiers can
be separated by any character (except a space) or none at all. key can be any key defined in
/usr/include/X11/keysymdef.h. Omit the XK_ prefixes to the key names found in that file. The list
of modifiers must be separated from the key with a plus sign “+”. The default is Control+Mod1+p.
(Mod1 usually corresponds to the left Alt key).

--stop-shortcut mod+key
Designate a key combination to stop the recording. For details, see --pause-shortcut above. The
default is Control+Mod1+s.

--compress-cache
Image data are cached with a light compression.

--workdir dir
recordMyDesktop creates a temporary directiory in dir to cache intermediate files. The default is
read from the environment variable TMPDIR if set, otherwise /tmp is used.

--delay n[H|h|M|m]
Wait n units of time (seconds, if not specified) before starting the recording, where n is a non-
negative integral or floating-point value. An optional suffix of H or h, M or m; indicates time
units of hours or minutes, respectively. The default is no delay.

--overwrite
If the output filename already exists, delete it. The default is to refuse to overwrite,
interpolating a numeric discriminator into the filename instead (see the Files section below).

-o filename
Write the encoded video to filename. The default is out.ogv.

Exit Status

       An exit status of 0 means success per the usual Unix conventions.

       A non-zero exit status means that an error occurred; these are accompanied by diagnostic messages to  the
       standard error.  Furthermore, several exceptional conditions are distinguished by exit status.

       1      Argument parsing failed or argument input was nonsensical.

       2      Encoder initialization failed (Vorbis or Theora).

       3      Could not open or configure sound device.

       4      XDamage extension is not present.

       5      MIT-SHM extension is not present.

       6      XFixes extension is not present.

       7      XInitThreads(3) failed.

       8      The DISPLAY environment variable is not set and no --display option was specified.

       9      Could not connect to the X server.

       10     The color depth of the root window is not 32, 24, or 16 bits per pixel.

       11     The recording window specification was invalid.

       12     Could not attach shared memory to process.

       13     Could not open file for writing.

Environment

       DISPLAY
              specifies  the  X  server  to  connect  to.   For  typical use cases, this variable is already set
              correctly in the environment and corresponds to the X display the user is already interacting with
              (in other words, recordMyDesktop “does the right thing”).  See section Display Names in  X(7)  for
              more information.

Files

       recordMyDesktop  adds  the  suffix  .ogv to any output filename that does not already possess one (in any
       letter case).

       If you try to save to a filename that  already  exists,  a  numeric  discriminator  of  the  form  -n  is
       interpolated  into  the  filename before the .ogv suffix.  The number n starts at 1 and is incremented if
       the filename with that discriminator exists already.

       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 is used, and so on ad infinitum (not really, more like ad unsigned short).

Notes

   Recoding using an X window ID
       When using the --windowid option, read carefully its description in the Options section above, as well as
       those of the -x, -y, --width, and --height options.

       An easy way to find out the ID of a window is by using the xwininfo(1) program.  Running a command like
              $ xwininfo | awk '/Window id:/ {print $4}'
       will  report  only  the  window  ID,  which  will  be  a  hexadecimal  integer  in C literal format, like
       “0x4800005”.  More conveniently, you can put all that in the command that launches  recordMyDesktop  like
       this:
              $ recordmydesktop --windowid $(xwininfo | awk '/Window id:/ {print $4}')

   Tuning the video quality
       The  lower  the  quality  you select on a video recording (by using the --v_quality option), the more CPU
       performance you will require.  So if you are also using the --on-the-fly-encoding option, it's better  to
       start  with default values and manipulate the end result with another program.  An excellent converter is
       the vlc(1) media player, which can perform a variety of transcoding operations, using either a  graphical
       interface  or the command line.  vlc is a complex piece of software; you should consult its documentation
       before using it.  An example follows which will resize a recording named out.ogv to 512×384.
              $ 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 option --sout-theora-quality=n, with n in the
       range [1,10]; for example,
              $ 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
       produces a file of a video quality 18 (in a range of 0–63), appropriate for web publishing.

       Another option  is  ffmpeg2theora(1),  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 geometry 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 unpredictable behavior, which might manifest
              as an endless loop or a segmentation fault.

Authors

       John Varouhakis