How to make Video from your Linux Desktop with
xvidcap / Capture desktop output in a video on Linux
If you have wondered on how to create videos aiming at manuals on
how you do certain stuff on Linux, let's say related to programming
or system administration.
Then you should definitely check out
xvidcap
Below is the package description as taken from
apt-cache show
xvidcap
A screen capture enabling you to capture videos off your
X-Window desktop
for illustration or documentation purposes. It is intended to be
a
standards-based alternative to tools like Lotus
ScreenCam.
On Debian based Linux systems (e.g. Debian Ubuntu)
xvidcap
is available straight from the package repositories. To install and
test it you can straight issue:
linux:~# apt-get install xvidcap
...
To start using xvidcap, either by starting it with alt+f2 in gnome
or straight launch it from the applications menu via:
Applications -> Sound & Video ->
xvidcap
Here is how the
xvidcap program looks like right after you
start it;
As you see in the screenshot
xvidcap's menu interface is
extraordinary simple.
As you see it only has a
stop, pause, rec, back and forward
buttons, a capture selector and movie editor.
Pitily
xvidcap does not support music capturing, but at
least for me that's not such an issue.
If you click over the field
test-0000.mpeg[0000] with your
last mouse button, you will notice a drop down menu with an option
for preferences of xvidcap.
Take the time to play with the preferences, since there are quite a
few of them.
The most important preference that you might like to straightly
adjust in my view is in the:
Preferences -> Multi-Frame tab -> File Name:
The default file that xvidcap uses to store it's content files as
you will see in the preferences is
utest-%04d.mpeg
If you want to change the type of the output file format to let's
say flv change the
File Name: value to
utest-%04d.flv
Next time you record with xvidcap, you will have the file stored in
flv format.
The red lines which you see in the above screenshot is the capture
area, you will have to also tune the screen capture area before you
can proceed with recording a video from your desktop.
The way to capture your Desktop in fullscreen is a bit unusual, you
first need to mark up all your visible Desktop and before that you
will have to select from
xvidcap's preferences from:
Preferences -> General -> Minimize to System
Tray
By selecting this option each time you press the
xvidcap's
record button the xvidcap's controller interface will be
minimized to tray and capturing the video of the region previously
selected with the capture selector will start up.