path: root/recordmydesktop/doc/recordmydesktop.1

.TH "RECORDMYDESKTOP" 1 "13/7/2006" "Linux"


.SH NAME
recordMyDesktop \- record desktop sessions to an Ogg\-Theora\-Vorbis file.


.SH SYNOPSIS

.B        recordmydesktop
[
.B
Options
]^
.B
filename
.br
.br
.SH DESCRIPTION
.PP
        recordMyDesktop produces a file(default out.ogg) that contains a video and audio recording
.br
of a linux desktop session. The default behavior of recording is to mark areas that have changed(through libxdamage)
.br
and update the frame. This behavior can be changed (option
.B
\-\-full\-shots
) to produce a more accurate result
.br
or capture windows that do not generate events on change(windows with accelerated 3d context)
.br
but this will notably increase the workload.
.br
recordMyDesktop doesn't have a commandline interface.
.br
After startup, it can be controled only through the following signals:
.br
.br
.B
SIGUSR1
causes the program to pause if it's currently recording, and vice-versa.
.br
.B
SIGTERM
causes normal termination of the recording.
.br
.B
SIGINT
also causes normal termination.
.br
.B
SIGABRT
terminates the program and removes the specified output file.
.br
.br
.br
A typical scenario of recording can be a command as simple as:
.br
.B
~$ recordmydesktop
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which will produce a fullscreen recording named out.ogg
.br
while a command like:
.br
.B
~$ recordmydesktop foo.ogg
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will write output to foo.ogg
.br
.br
Since version 0.3, encoding will happen right after the recording finishes.
.br
While this behavior saves a lot of CPU, you can revert to the old one by entering the \-\-on\-the\-fly\-encoding switch.
.br
.br
To specify a region for recording you can type this:
.br
.B
~$ recordmydesktop \-x X_pos \-y Y_pos \-width WIDTH \-height HEIGHT \-o foo.ogg
.br
where X_pos and Y_pos specify the offset in pixels from the upper left
.br
corner of your screen and WIDTH and HEIGHT the size of the window to be recorded(again in pixels).
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If the area extends beyond your current resolution, you will be notified appropriately and nothing will happen.
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Notice also, that if any option is entered you have to specify the output file with the \-o switch.
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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)
.br
.br
.B
To normally end a recording you can press ctl-c.
.br
(which will send a
.B
SIGINT
to the program).
.br
.br
For further manipulation of the end result look at the
.B
OPTIONS
and
.B
NOTES
sections.
.br
.br
.br
.SH EXIT STATUS
0 is success
.br
Non-zero means an error occurred, which is printed in stderr.
.br
.br
The following error codes indicate the nature of the error:
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1 Error while parsing the arguments.
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2 Initializing the encoder failed(either vorbis or theora).
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3 Could not open/configure sound card.
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4 Xdamage extension not present.
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5 Shared memory extension not present.
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6 Xfixes extension not present.
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7 XInitThreads failed.
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8 No $DISPLAY environment variable and none specified as argument.
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9 Cannot connect to Xserver.
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10 Color depth is not 32, 24 or 16bpp.
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11 Improper window specification.
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12 Cannot attach shared memory to proccess.
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13 Cannot open file for writting.
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14 Cannot load the Jack library (dlopen/dlsym error on libjack.so).
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15 Cannot create new client.
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16 Cannot activate client.
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17 Port registration/connection failure.
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.br
.SH OPTIONS
.PP
.B
Generic Options:
.br
.TP
.B
    \-h or \-\-help
    Print help summary and exit.
.br
.TP
.B
    \-\-version
    Print program version and exit.
.br
.TP
.B
    \-\-print\-config
    Print info about options selected during compilation and exit.
.br
.PP
.br
.B
Image Options:
.br
.TP
.B
    \-windowid id_of_window
    id of window to be recorded.
.br
.TP
.B
    \-display DISPLAY
    Display to connect to.
.br
.TP
.B
    \-x X
    Offset in x direction.
.br
.TP
.B
    \-y Y
    Offset in y direction.
.br
.TP
.B
    \-width N
    Width of recorded window.
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.TP
.B
    \-height N
    Height of recorded window.
.br
.TP
.B
.br
.br
.TP
.B
    \-dummy\-cursor color
    Draw a dummy cursor, instead of the normal one.Value of color can be "black" or "white".
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.TP
.B
    \-\-no\-cursor
    Disable drawing of the cursor.
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.TP
.B
    \-\-no\-shared
    Disable usage of MIT\-shared memory extension
.B
(Not Recommended).

.br
.TP
.B
    \-\-full\-shots
    Take full screenshot at every frame(Not recomended!).
.br
.TP
.B
    \-\-follow\-mouse
    When this option is enabled, the capture area follows the mouse cursor. This
    is meaningfull only when the selected area is a subset of the full screen.
    This option auto-enables --full-shots.
.br
.TP
.B
    \-\-quick\-subsampling
    Do subsampling of the chroma planes by discarding extra pixels.
.br
.TP
.B
    \-fps N(number>0.0)
    A positive number denoting desired framerate.
.br
.br
.PP
.B
Sound Options:
.br
.TP
.B
    \-channels N(number>0)
    A positive number denoting desired sound channels in recording.
.br
.TP
.B
    \-freq N(number>0)
    A positive number denoting desired sound frequency.
.br
.TP
.B
    \-buffer\-size N(number>0)
    A positive number denoting the desired sound buffer size(in frames, when using ALSA or OSS).
.br
.TP
.B
    \-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.
.br
.TP
.B
    \-device SOUND_DEVICE
    Sound device(default hw:0,0 or /dev/dsp, depending on whether ALSA or OSS is used).
.br
.TP
.B
    \-use\-jack port1 port2... portn
    Record audio from the specified list of
.B
space-separated
jack ports.
    When using this option, all the rest audio related ones(except --no-sound) are not taken into account.
.br
.TP
.B
    \-\-no\-sound
    Do not record sound.
.br
.PP
.br
.B
Encoding Options:
.br
.TP
.B
    \-\-on\-the\-fly\-encoding
    Encode the audio-video data, while recording.
.br
.TP
.B
    \-v_quality n
    A number from 0 to 63 for desired encoded video quality(default 63).
.br
.TP
.B
    \-v_bitrate n
    A number from 45000 to 2000000 for desired encoded video bitrate(default 45000).
.br
.TP
.B
    \-s_quality n
    Desired audio quality(\-1 to 10).
.br
.PP
.br
.B
Misc Options:
.br
.TP
.B
    \-\-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).
.br
.TP
.B
    \-\-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.
.br
.TP
.B
    \-\-compress\-cache
    Image data are cached with a light compression.
.br
.TP
.B
    \-workdir DIR
    Location where a temporary directory will be created to hold project files(default /tmp).
.br
.TP
.B
    \-delay n[H|h|M|m]
    Number of secs(default),minutes or hours before capture starts(number can be float).
.br
.TP
.B
    \-\-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.ogg exists,
    the new file will be out.ogg.1 and if that exists too, out.ogg.2
    and so on (no ad-infinitum though, more like ad-short-integer...)
.br
.TP
.B
    \-o filename
    Name of recorded video(default out.ogg).



.PP
.br
If no other option is specified, filename can be given without the \-o switch.
.br
.br
.SH USAGE
.TP
.B        recordmydesktop [OPTIONS]^filename
.br
.br
.br
.br
.SH ENVIRONMENT
.TP
.B
DISPLAY
.br
Display environment variable, specifying X server to connect to.
.br
.SH NOTES
.br
    Recording a window using the \-windowid option, doesn't track the window itself, but the region that it covers.
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Also when using that option the \-x,\-y,\-width and \-height options are relative to the specified window area.
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An easy way to find out the id of a window, is by using the
.B
xwininfo
program.
.br
Running a command like :
.br
.B
xwininfo |grep "Window id:"|sed \-e "s/xwininfo\\:\\ Window id:\\ // ;s/\\ \.*//"
.br
will give you only the id of the window(which should look like this: 0x4800005)
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More conviniently you can put all that in the command that launches recordMyDesktop like this:
.br
.B
~$recordmydesktop \-windowid $(xwininfo |grep "Window id:"|sed \-e "s/xwininfo\\:\\ Window id:\\ // ;s/\\ \.*//" )
.br
.br
    Also, the lower quality you select on a video recording (
.B
-v_quality
option), the highest CPU-power that you will need.
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So
.B
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.
.br
.br
An excellent converter is the
.B
vlc
media player, which can perform a variety of transcoding
.br
operations, either using the graphical interface, or the commandline for more flexibility.
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vlc is a complex piece of software, so you should consult it's documentation, before
.br
using it.
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An example follows, which will resize a recording named out.ogg to 512x384:
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.B
vlc \-I dummy out.ogg vlc:quit \-\-sout "#transcode{ vcodec = theo, width = 512, height = 384 }:duplicate{ dst = std{ access = file, mux=ogg, dst = \\"out_512x384.ogg\\" }}"
.br
.br
If you wish to change the video quality you can append the
.B
\-\-sout\-theora\-quality=n,
with
.B
n
in the range
.B
[1,10]
e.g:
.br
.B
vlc \-I dummy out.ogg vlc:quit \-\-sout "#transcode{ vcodec = theo, width = 512, height = 384 }:duplicate{ dst = std{ access = file, mux=ogg, dst = \\"out_512x384.ogg\\" }}" \-\-sout\-theora\-quality=3
.br
which will give a file of a video quality 18 (in a range of 0-63), thus appropriate for web-publishing.
.br
.br
Another option is
.B
ffmpeg2theora
, which despite its name is also a theora to theora converter.
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Changing the quality of a recordng with it, can be as simple as :
.br
.B
ffmpeg2theora infile.ogg \-v 3 \-a 4 \-o outfile.ogg
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It can even perform resizing on the size of the recording, or change the overall duration.
.br
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.SH BUGS
Does not record 3d windows, if \-\-full\-shots isn't specified.
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Saving 65536 files with the same name, will result in upredictable behavior,
.br
which might manifest as an endless loop, or a segmentation fault.
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.SH AUTHORS
John Varouhakis(johnvarouhakis@gmail.com)
.br
.SH SEE ALSO
.BR xwininfo(1)
.br
.BR vlc(1)
.br
.BR ffmpeg2theora(1)
.br
.BR jack_lsp(1)
.br