Has anyone got xvidcap working in 12.1? It works fine in 11.3. Xvidcap seems to install fine using YAST with no errors. It seems to load fine when executed but when I try to record it’s unresponsive.
Did you try to run it from a terminal? If so, do you get any error messages? Is there any HD activity while it seem to be running?
I tried running from command line. It gave me the error:
Error accessing sound input from /dev/dsp
Sound disabled!
So I guess that’s probably the problem. I don’t know how to fix it but at least now I can try to resolve it.
There is an old xvidcap thread here:
http://forums.opensuse.org/forums/english/get-technical-help-here/multimedia/455450-xvidcap-not-working-after-update-11-4-a.html
have you checked the xvidcap documentation to try to get any hints: SourceForge.net: Faq - xvidcap
I have not looked at this for many months (when I had openSUSE-11.3 up and running), but I confess I evolved to using the ffmpeg command (see post#27 in same thread noted )
For use of ‘ffmpeg’ to record the desktop, lets say one has a screen with a resolution of 1920x1200 (such as my screen). Lets say one has a KDE4 desktop and one wants to capture a video of an application in the desktop that only files PART of the desktop screen, say of 1440x900 resolution in the desktop screen. Then what one needs to do is move the application to the upper left hand corner of one’s KDE4 desktop. Set the application window size to exactly 1440x900. One can do this by clicking on the ‘menu’ icon in the very upper left corner of the window on the application title bar at window top, and select "advanced > special window settings > geometry > size " and type 1440,900. Select ‘apply now’ from the drop down menu.
This will then size the window to be exactly 1440x900 resolution. Ensure the window is in the upper left corner. And then send this ffmpeg command:
ffmpeg -f alsa -ac 2 -i hw:1,0 -f x11grab -r 30 -s 1440x900 -i :0.0 -acodec pcm_s16le -vcodec libx264 -vpre lossless_ultrafast -threads 0 output.avi
where the output video will be ‘output.avi’. One can stop the recording by pressing .
The only tricky part for me (on my openSUSE-11.3) was to select the mic in ffmpeg with the " -i … " option. If one has pulse audio enabled one can likely use " -i pulse " instead of the " -i hw:1,0 " that I used.
In my case I first ran :
arecord -l
which gave me:
oldcpu@core-i7:~> arecord -l
**** List of CAPTURE Hardware Devices ****
card 0: Intel [HDA Intel], device 0: AD198x Analog [AD198x Analog]
Subdevices: 3/3
Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
Subdevice #1: subdevice #1
Subdevice #2: subdevice #2
**card 1**: U0x46d0x821 [USB Device 0x46d:0x821], **device 0**: **USB Audio** [USB Audio]
Subdevices: 1/1
Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
and determined my USB (webcam) mic was HW:1,0 (ie card-1, subdevice 0). Since I wanted to use the mic in my webcam to record, I input hw:1,0 in the ffmpeg command.
Later in that thread in post#36 I documented how I recorded a Skype conversation. Now thats without pulse audio … I suspect with some practise it may be even easier with pulse audio and I made notes of some of my investigations with pulse audio in a thread here starting in post#4.
Great tip, oldcpu, thanks. I’ve tried recordmydesktop once but it was very choppy, although I didn’t have the time (or need) to try fixing it.
I presume the “-r 30” is fps? Do you get a smooth recording in your machine? If so, what is the processor speed & CPU load while recording?
TIA
Yes 30fps.
I have a core i7 920. I have not looked at the CPU speed but I suspect at most it takes up one of the eight virtual cores.
Thanks for the reply oldcpu. Still no luck with xvidcap. Not a big deal for me though since I’m just using opensuse 12.1 on a test box.
I forgot to mention. On my core i7 920 I get smooth recording. On a slower PC that may (or may not) be the case. I don’t know.
My wife was on German TV (for a few seconds) recently, and we wanted to capture the documentary where she was one of many people pictured. It was available as a flash on the Internet, but unfortunately none of the video record programs would capture this. So I attempted to use the above ffmpeg command to capture the screen. But ffmpeg has evolved a bit since, and -vpre lossless_ultrafast is no longer an option. So on an openSUSE-11.4 system (core i7 920 cpu), I played back the TV at full screen (1920x1200) and captured it with this command:
ffmpeg -f alsa -ac 2 -i pulse -f x11grab -r 25 -s 1920x1200 -i :0.0 -acodec pcm_s16le -vcodec libx264 -preset ultrafast -threads 0 output.avi
The command is a bit different, but it worked.