Recording Screencast in Ubuntu (Linux)

When I started looking for a Screencast recording solution for Linux, I wasn’t satisfied much with the available software. The best was recordmydesktop which always recorded in the open OGV (Part of OGG) format. There was little I could do. So I looked further and then I came across the powerful FFMpeg.

Using FFMpeg

It is a command-line tool with over whelming options. Until Ubuntu 11.10, I have used it with the following set of commands:

To install ffmpeag
sudo apt-get install libav-tools

Some additional packages required:

sudo apt-get install libavcodec-extra-53
sudo apt-get install mencoder
sudo apt-get install gstreamer0.10-ffmpeg gstreamer0.10-plugins-ugly
sudo apt-get install gstreamer0.10-plugins-bad
sudo apt-get install libx264-120
sudo apt-get install libx264-dev

Record quality AVI screencast:

ffmpeg -f alsa -ac 2 -i pulse -f x11grab -r 30 -s 1280x800 -i :0.0 -acodec libmp3lame -vcodec libx264 -vpre libx264-lossless_ultrafast -threads 0 out.avi

Trim video from the end:

mencoder -endpos 00:05:42 -oac copy -ovc copy html.avi -o html-whitespaces_en.avi

Remove the audio:

ffmpeg -i html-whitespaces_en.avi -vcodec copy -an html2.avi

Add a different audio:

ffmpeg -i html2.avi -i urdu.wav -vcodec copy -acodec libmp3lame html-whitespaces_ur.avi -newaudio

Using recordmydesktop

As mentioned earlier I wasn’t happy with its provided options but non-the-less it is a recording solution which supports command-line also.

sudo apt-get install recordmydesktop
recordmydesktop --width 1280 --height 800 --full-shots --fps 15 --channels 1 --device hw:0,0 --delay 10

If this gives an error, try hw:1,0 instead.

sudo apt-get install mencoder

To show a list of all the output formats supported:

mencoder -of help
mencoder -endpos 00:00:30 -oac mp3lame -ovc x264 out.ogv -o output5.avi
recordmydesktop --help

Using anconv

It is the replacement of FFmpeg and it should be considered now instead of FFmpeg.

sudo apt-get install ubuntu-restricted-extras mencoder
sleep 10 && avconv -f alsa -i pulse -f x11grab -r 30 -s 1280x800 -i :0.0 -vcodec libx264 -acodec libmp3lame myscreencast.avi

To get the info about the recorded clip:

avconv -i myscreencast.avi

To cut the video from the end:

mencoder -endpos 00:00:08 -oac copy -ovc copy myscreencast.avi -o myscreencast2.avi

where -endpos is the ending time, remaining will be removed.

Remove sound using mencoder:

mencoder -ovc copy -nosound myscreencast2.avi -o nosound.avi

Finally add a different audio to the nosound.avi

mencoder -ovc copy -audiofile sound.mp3 -oac mp3lame nosound.avi -o final.avi

instead of mp3lame the word copy can also be used.

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