Arch Linux

phw

Member

Registered: 2013-05-27

Posts: 318

[obsolete] Using avconv with x11grab

I have to test my software against avconv, as it should work with both ffmpeg and avconv. For this I installed libav-git-no-libs from the AUR. The issue I encounter is that the x11grab input device, used to capture the screen under X, is not available. If I run the standard example from the avconv documentation it tells me "Unknown input format: 'x11grab'"

$ avconv -f x11grab -s cif -r 25 -i :0.0+10,20 /tmp/out.mpg

avconv version v13_dev0-858-g17aeee583, Copyright (c) 2000-2017 the Libav developers
  built on Feb 17 2017 14:55:23 with gcc 6.3.1 (GCC) 20170109
Unknown input format: 'x11grab'

Also x11grab is not listed in the configure output, even though I think it should be listed if enabled. I tried explicitly compiling it with the "--enable-libxcb --enable-libxcb-shm --enable-libxcb-xfixes" configure flags, but same result. libxcb is installed of course, x11grab is working fine with ffmpeg (standard Arch package here).

Has anybody some experience with avconv or some idea what is happening here?

Thanks

Last edited by phw (2017-02-22 08:04:27)

phw

Member

Registered: 2013-05-27

Posts: 318

Re: [obsolete] Using avconv with x11grab

Some output from "./configure --enable-libxcb --enable-libxcb-shm --enable-libxcb-xfixes"

External libraries:
bzlib                     libxcb                    libxcb_shm               
libxcb_xfixes             zlib

Enabled indevs:
alsa                      dv1394                    fbdev                    
jack                      oss                       v4l2

DrZaius

Member

Registered: 2008-01-02

Posts: 193

Re: [obsolete] Using avconv with x11grab

In my opinion you're wasting your time with avconv. I doubt there are very many users: especially since Ubuntu went back to (the real) ffmpeg a few years ago.

phw

Member

Registered: 2013-05-27

Posts: 318

Re: [obsolete] Using avconv with x11grab

Thanks for this second opinion, I figure you are right. I have given up on trying to get it running, good to know the distributions are switching back.

I was still able to give avconv a quick test once I remembered I have an old netbook with Debian installed on it lying around. Also the differences to ffmpeg are for my use case subtle enough to be dealt with, so I think this was a one-shot and I don't have to revisit this again.