Help creating screencasts on Ubuntu. keeping audio and video in sync

[heathenx]

tchomby wrote the following on 9/15/2008 3:36 PM:
> Okay, I've given up. I sent an urgent request to support and asked them 
> to install Windows for me. I did make some progress...
> 
> I installed the latest version of recordmydesktop using the deb file 
> from www.getdeb.net <http://www.getdeb.net>. I don't think that made any 
> difference, cause the first test I ran at my normal 1280*1024 resolution 
> had the usual sync problems. Then I decided to try a lower resolution, 
> 800*600, and I found the sync was almost perfect. For some reason its 
> slightly better if recordmydesktop is run with on-the-fly-encoding than 
> if it's run without. Whenever something big changes on screen, like a 
> window opening, things go briefly out of sync, but recover, and at 
> 800*600 this effect is acceptably minimal. At 1024*768 it's slightly 
> worse, but still okay. This is all on Ubuntu using the real-time kernel, 
> I never tried it at low-res without the real-time kernel.I never tried 
> xvidcap either, nor this clever approach of running recordmydesktop and 
> audacity at the same  time. But even if you can record things in sync, 
> there are more problems to come.
> 
> I couldn't import the OGG file into Kino, it just didn't work, and I 
> don't understand avidemux. It doesn't look like Avidemux can do the 
> video editing things that Kino does, like muting out coughs, adding 
> text, etc. I don't want to have to learn cinelerra, even if I did, there 
> will probably only be more problems to come, it's all just too difficult.


Well, to be honest, I use Audacity to clean up audio when I need to. For instance, let's say I used 
RMD to screencast something with sound. Once I convert that to an avi, I open it in Avidemux then 
save out the audio to am mp3 file. I'll open the mp3 in Audacity and cleanup any coughing, hiccups, 
or noise, save it, and use this new mp3 as my main track in Avidemux. That is a very easy process. 
As far as adding text screens, I have never tried doing that with Avidemux.

Kino, on the other hand, makes very nice text screens. To convert your ogg file to dv outside of 
Kino you might try: ffmpeg -i out.ogg -target ntsc-dv out.dv


> I watched the tutorial videos for Camtasia and it almost brought a tear 
> to my eye, it looks like it just makes everything so easy. Whoever 
> writes an equivalent for linux will be a real hero, that's no easy 
> program to write. I really, really hope it works for me.


I am a long time Camtasia/SnagIt user on Windows. It is a very nice application. I use it for work 
related things and it does come in handy sometimes. Since my company buys the software, I don't have 
to worry about the price.


> Since I still need linux to do all my other work I'm planning on 
> installing it as a vritual machine on Windows. Friends of mine have done 
> this before, and it seemed to be flawless for most tasks.
> 
> A cheeky trick did occur to me. It makes me sad that Windows will be 
> featured in my screencasts that I'll put so much work into. But could I 
> not use Camtasia in Windows to screen-capture the window containing the 
> Ubuntu virtual machine? This should work in theory, shouldn't it?


I have done this using VirtualBox and it works really well. You could also try seamless mode if that 
makes it easier. It is a little resource heavy but worked like a charm when I needed it. Give it a 
try. ;)

Sorry that video editing in Linux is crappy at the moment. Linux needs an app like Camtasia. Hang in 
there.

heathenx