A more stable XVidCap

synthead · 2008-04-20 23:07:27

XVidCap crashes sooo sooo much. It either just disappears in front of my eyes or freezes and I have to xkill it. Kind of frustrating when you're recording a long video and don't know what's going on, you know! Is there a better alternative to XVidCap or a way to make it more stable? I haven't configured it besides setting up codecs and what file to record to.

Last edited by synthead (2008-04-21 01:38:23)

lucke · 2008-04-20 23:26:26

Run "vlc screen://" and use Wizard in File menu to transcode and save.

synthead · 2008-04-20 23:28:54

Ohhhh, nice. I use vlc on the regular too, I like it. How do I record just a window instead of the screen?

lucke · 2008-04-21 00:18:56

I'm not sure if recording just a window is possible.

sim4lin · 2008-04-21 00:29:40

Hello,
There is "recordmydesktop" in the AUR.
The available front-end "gtk-recordMyDesktop" (pygtk) will allow
you to select a window, though sometimes the selection is
slightly larger than the actual window.

synthead · 2008-04-21 01:15:23

sim4lin wrote:

Hello,
There is "recordmydesktop" in the AUR.
The available front-end "gtk-recordMyDesktop" (pygtk) will allow
you to select a window, though sometimes the selection is
slightly larger than the actual window.

This is exactly what I was looking for! Thank you!

And I wonder if I can stream a desktop via VLC to a viewer over a network ...

synthead · 2008-04-21 01:38:08

Have you ever been able to record audio with recordmydesktop? No matter what I put in the "Device" section, it ends with status 768 and says it couldn't open/configure the soundcard. I've tried default, /dev/sound/dsp, /dev/sound/mixer, /dev/sound/audio, /dev/audio, and hw:0,0

sim4lin · 2008-04-21 02:01:27

synthead wrote:

Have you ever been able to record audio with recordmydesktop? No matter what I put in the "Device" section, it ends with status 768 and says it couldn't open/configure the soundcard. I've tried default, /dev/sound/dsp, /dev/sound/mixer, /dev/sound/audio, /dev/audio, and hw:0,0

Sorry,
I've never been able to record audio from my machine with any application.
I'll mess with it a bit tonight though...

sim4lin · 2008-04-21 08:51:47

Hello synthead,
I don't know why you are getting the "Staus 768". Having
"default" or "hw:0,0" as the device should be fine.
As I mentioned before, I cannot normally capture system
audio with any application. My hardware is poor and I don't
have any kind of software mixer setup, but I do not get any
errors. The video records fine, just without audio.
Are you able to capture system audio with other applications?
You did not mention before if xvidcap was capable.
I hope you can figure it out as this is a very nice application.
I have used it many times from the cli, but I tried the gui's
today (one is pygtk, and one pyqt). Being able to drag a region
from within the preview window is a nice feature.

For anyone that may be interested, I jumpered my audio out
and microphone in (with mic boost off and mic volume way down),
and made a short video just for kicks. It is nothing exciting,
just a test of clarity and a/v sync. I set the video quality to about
50% and audio quality to about 25%.
Video specifications:
2 minutes
approximately 800x600
6.4MB
ogg video

Hardware:
AMD Sempron 2500 @ 1.8Ghz
VIA 8237 on board sound (using alsa-oss)
Nvidia FX5500 256Mhz AGP
1 GB PC2700 DDR

synthead · 2008-04-21 09:52:12

That's really neat, it's fun seeing other people's Linux machines - they can look and behave like anything.

I used the program to make a short video on a speedy pacman install: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XjBLr9oVBa0 I wish the video quality was higher. To my surprise, YouTube allowed me to upload an ogv, but it seems like the high-quality option is only available on the mpegs I've uploaded. For example ... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rWRkho6OREQ

I'm going to mess around with a few things later and see if I can get audio to work. If I have any success stories, I'll post 'em up

sim4lin · 2008-04-21 12:08:34

synthead wrote:

To my surprise, YouTube allowed me to upload an ogv, but it seems like the high-quality option is only available on the mpegs I've uploaded.

Hello,
This will do a quick conversion to avi, with good video quality and modest audio.
(assuming that you get your audio squared away!)

ffmpeg -i video.ogv -ab 96k -ar 22050 -b 3000k -s 800x600 video.avi

The resulting file will be a bit large, but perhaps YouTube will be kinder to it than
it is with ogg video. You can make the size whatever you like. If your origional ogg
was captured at high quality, you can resize a 1024x768 video to 800x600 with no
noticeable loss, and to 640x480 with only a slight loss.

skottish · 2008-04-21 18:56:34

If anyone is going to post on YouTube, it's useful to know that they are going to reencode your video. I recommend that you encode with the flv codec and aim high with the bitrate. If you can't encode the first time with flv, FFmpeg, mencoder, and VLC will all do it.

Last edited by skottish (2008-04-21 18:56:54)

sim4lin · 2008-04-21 21:40:41

skottish wrote:

If anyone is going to post on YouTube, it's useful to know that they are going to reencode your video. I recommend that you encode with the flv codec and aim high with the bitrate. If you can't encode the first time with flv, FFmpeg, mencoder, and VLC will all do it.

Well heck... that's a good idea.

YouTube recommends mpeg4 avi's at 640x480 with mp3 audio, but I think they suggest this because encoding to flv is not that common.
I think YouTube vids are resized to 480x360. An flv of good quality, at that resolution, will be large in MB, but it will look nice.
This is the minimum specification I could come up with and still have good quality.

ffmpeg -i video.ogv -ab 56k -ar 22050 -b 1200k -r 15 -f flv -s 480x360 video.flv

If you don't mind the girth, you can put the bitrate at 2000k or more (-b 2000k), and
have a video that is very crisp for it's size. YouTube will bring that rate down a good
bit, but I don't know how much.

skottish · 2008-04-21 22:29:17

sim4lin wrote:

YouTube recommends mpeg4 avi's at 640x480 with mp3 audio, but I think they suggest this because encoding to flv is not that common.

FLV is MPEG4 with a hook; It allows for variable frame rates. If you look at a FLV file with FFmpeg, the frame rate field will always give you seemingly impossible value.

Last edited by skottish (2008-04-21 22:31:44)

synthead · 2008-04-22 08:53:49

I've found so far that the only two formats YouTube will playback in hi-def are mov and mpeg. Funny enough, flv doesn't playback in hi-def ... go figure.

synthead · 2008-05-04 05:43:24

synthead wrote:

Have you ever been able to record audio with recordmydesktop? No matter what I put in the "Device" section, it ends with status 768 and says it couldn't open/configure the soundcard. I've tried default, /dev/sound/dsp, /dev/sound/mixer, /dev/sound/audio, /dev/audio, and hw:0,0

Here's something interesting:

[max@gayforceone record]$ recordmydesktop
Initial recording window is set to:
X:0   Y:0    Width:1280    Height:1024
Adjusted recording window is set to:
X:0   Y:0    Width:1280    Height:1024
Your window manager appears to be Xfwm4

Initializing...
Buffer size adjusted to 4096 from 4096 frames.
Opened PCM device hw:0,0
Couldn't set format.
Error while opening/configuring soundcard hw:0,0
Try running with the --no-sound or specify a correct device.

Couldn't set format? Is there a "winning" format I ought to try? What are you using, sim4lin?

Pyronhell · 2008-05-15 16:20:13

I've the same problem, can't capture audio with recordmydesktop... U,U. i've tried much options but it's imposible.

Arch Linux

#1 2008-04-20 23:07:27

A more stable XVidCap

#2 2008-04-20 23:26:26

Re: A more stable XVidCap

#3 2008-04-20 23:28:54

Re: A more stable XVidCap

#4 2008-04-21 00:18:56

Re: A more stable XVidCap

#5 2008-04-21 00:29:40

Re: A more stable XVidCap

#6 2008-04-21 01:15:23

Re: A more stable XVidCap

#7 2008-04-21 01:38:08

Re: A more stable XVidCap

#8 2008-04-21 02:01:27

Re: A more stable XVidCap

#9 2008-04-21 08:51:47

Re: A more stable XVidCap

#10 2008-04-21 09:52:12

Re: A more stable XVidCap

#11 2008-04-21 12:08:34

Re: A more stable XVidCap

#12 2008-04-21 18:56:34

Re: A more stable XVidCap

#13 2008-04-21 21:40:41

Re: A more stable XVidCap

#14 2008-04-21 22:29:17

Re: A more stable XVidCap

#15 2008-04-22 08:53:49

Re: A more stable XVidCap

#16 2008-05-04 05:43:24

Re: A more stable XVidCap

#17 2008-05-15 16:20:13

Re: A more stable XVidCap

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