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

Provided by: recordmydesktop_0.4.0-1_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)
⟨https://www.x.org/releases/X11R7.7/doc/xextproto/shm.html⟩. 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