Take a video from your Linux desktop

To record a video from your desktop (like a screenshot, just video, also known as screencast) you can use

• the command recordmydesktop
• the command xvidcap
• the command ffmpeg
• the Chrome extension like https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/screencastify-screen-vide/mmeijimgabbpbgpdklnllpncmdofkcpn?hl=en
• an external hardware HDMI output recorder (costs 20 bucks)

Recordmydesktop

• open a console
• decide if your current resolution fits. If it does not, change it using xrandr, e.g.

xrandr -s "640x480"

• install recordmydesktop, in this example for SUSE Linux:

yast -i recordmydesktop

• start the video recording with the command

recordmydesktop

• the result will be a file e.g. out-1.ogv. To convert it to a more efficient size, use e.g.

ffmpeg -i out-1.ogv -f mp4 out-1.mp4

Record a window only

Use xwininfo to find out the window ID, then start recordmydesktop like

recordmydesktop --windowid 0x2400014

Alternatives

• recordmydesktop
• xvidcap
• ffmpeg -f x11grab -s hd720 -r 15 -i :0.0 screenCapture.avi

See also

• http://community.kde.org/Promo/youtube