summaryrefslogtreecommitdiff
path: root/recordmydesktop/doc/recordmydesktop.1
blob: 00a436670d72ee1bb88680e09f059c369674c4d0 (plain)
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83
84
85
86
87
88
89
90
91
92
93
94
95
96
97
98
99
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129
130
131
132
133
134
135
136
137
138
139
140
141
142
143
144
145
146
147
148
149
150
151
152
153
154
155
156
157
158
159
160
161
162
163
164
165
166
167
168
169
170
171
172
173
174
175
176
177
178
179
180
181
182
183
184
185
186
187
188
189
190
191
192
193
194
195
196
197
198
199
200
201
202
203
204
205
206
207
208
209
210
211
212
213
214
215
216
217
218
219
220
221
222
223
224
225
226
227
228
229
230
231
232
233
234
235
236
237
238
239
240
241
242
243
244
245
246
247
248
249
250
251
252
253
254
255
256
257
258
259
260
261
262
263
264
265
266
267
268
269
270
271
272
273
274
275
276
277
278
279
280
281
282
283
284
285
286
287
288
289
290
291
292
293
294
295
296
297
298
299
300
301
302
303
304
305
306
307
308
309
310
311
312
313
314
315
316
317
318
319
320
321
322
323
324
325
326
327
328
329
330
331
332
333
334
335
336
337
338
339
340
341
342
343
344
345
346
347
348
349
350
351
352
353
354
355
356
357
358
359
360
361
362
363
364
365
366
367
368
369
370
371
372
373
374
375
376
377
378
379
380
381
382
383
384
385
386
387
388
389
390
391
392
393
394
395
396
397
398
399
400
401
402
403
404
405
406
407
408
409
410
411
412
413
414
415
416
417
418
419
420
421
422
423
424
425
426
427
428
429
430
431
432
433
434
435
436
437
438
439
440
441
442
443
444
445
446
447
448
449
450
451
452
453
454
455
456
457
458
459
460
461
462
463
464
465
466
467
468
469
470
471
472
473
474
475
476
477
478
479
480
481
482
483
484
485
486
487
488
489
490
491
492
493
494
495
496
497
498
499
500
501
502
503
504
505
506
507
508
509
510
511
512
513
514
515
516
517
518
519
520
521
522
523
524
525
526
527
528
529
530
531
532
533
534
535
536
537
538
539
540
541
542
543
544
545
546
547
548
549
550
551
552
553
554
555
556
557
558
559
560
561
562
563
564
565
.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.ogv) 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
This signals can also be delivered on the application, with the use of 
shortcuts.
.br
See 
.B
\-pause\-shortcut
and
.B
\-stop\-shortcut
, on the 
.B
Misc.
section
of 
.B
Options
bellow.
.br
 
.br
 
.br
 
A typical scenario of recording can be a command as simple as:
.br
.B
~$ recordmydesktop
.br
which will produce a fullscreen recording named out.ogv
.br
while a command like:
.br
.B
~$ recordmydesktop foo.ogv
.br
will write output to foo.ogv
.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.ogv
.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).
.br
If the area extends beyond your current resolution, you will be notified appropriately and nothing will happen.
.br
Notice also, that if any option is entered you have to specify the output file with the \-o switch.
.br
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:
.br
1 Error while parsing the arguments.
.br
2 Initializing the encoder failed(either vorbis or theora).
.br
3 Could not open/configure sound card.
.br
4 Xdamage extension not present.
.br
5 Shared memory extension not present.
.br
6 Xfixes extension not present.
.br
7 XInitThreads failed.
.br
8 No $DISPLAY environment variable and none specified as argument.
.br
9 Cannot connect to Xserver.
.br
10 Color depth is not 32, 24 or 16bpp.
.br
11 Improper window specification.
.br
12 Cannot attach shared memory to proccess.
.br
13 Cannot open file for writting.
.br
14 Cannot load the Jack library (dlopen/dlsym error on libjack.so).
.br
15 Cannot create new client.
.br
16 Cannot activate client.
.br
17 Port registration/connection failure.
.br
.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.
.br
.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".
.br
.TP
.B
    \-\-no\-cursor
    Disable drawing of the cursor.
.br
.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
    \-rescue path_to_data   
    Encode cache data from a previous session, into an Ogg/Theora+Vorbis
    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, remember that
   
.B
recordMyDesktop's cache is not safe, in respect to type-sizes and endianness.
.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
    \-\-no\-frame
    Normally, around the recording area, there is drawn a frame to assist
    the user in identifying what does and what doesn't get captured.
    This frame will also follow around the mouse, when \-\-follow\-mouse
    is used. If you do not wish this frame to appear, use this option.
.br
.TP
.B
    \-pause\-shortcut MOD+KEY
    Shortcut that will be used for pausing or unpausing the recording.
    MOD can be any combination of the following modifier keys:
    Control, Shift and Mod1 to Mod5. The modifiers can be separated 
    with any character(
.B
except SPACE
) or none at all. KEY can be any key defined in 
    /usr/include/X11/keysymdef.h without the XK_ prefix.
    The list of modifiers must be separated from the key with a plus('+')
    sign.
    Default is Control+Mod1+p (Mod1 usually corresponds to left Alt).
    
.br
.TP
.B
    \-stop\-shortcut MOD+KEY
    Shortcut that will be used to stop the recording.
    For more, see \-pause\-shortcut above.
    Default is Control+Mod1+s. 
.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.ogv exists,
    the new file will be out-1.ogv and if that exists too, out-2.ogv
    and so on (no ad-infinitum though, more like ad-short-integer...)
.br
.TP
.B
    \-o filename
    Name of recorded video(default out.ogv).



.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.
.br
Also when using that option the \-x,\-y,\-width and \-height options are relative to the specified window area.
.br
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 | awk \'/Window id:/ {print $4}\'
.br
will give you only the id of the window(which should look like this: 0x4800005)
.br
More conviniently you can put all that in the command that launches recordMyDesktop like this:
.br
.B
~$recordmydesktop \-windowid $(xwininfo | awk \'/Window id:/ {print $4}\')
.br
.br
    Also, the lower quality you select on a video recording (
.B
-v_quality
option), the highest CPU-power that you will need.
.br
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.
.br
vlc is a complex piece of software, so you should consult it's documentation, before
.br
using it.
.br
.br
An example follows, which will resize a recording named out.ogv to 512x384:
.br
.B
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\\" }}"
.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.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
.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.
.br
Changing the quality of a recordng with it, can be as simple as :
.br
.B
ffmpeg2theora infile.ogv \-v 3 \-a 4 \-o outfile.ogv
.br
It can even perform resizing on the size of the recording, or change the overall duration.
.br
.br
.SH BUGS
Does not record 3d windows, if \-\-full\-shots isn't specified.
.br
Saving 65536 files with the same name, will result in upredictable behavior,
.br
which might manifest as an endless loop, or a segmentation fault.
.br
.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
© All Rights Reserved