[ubuntu-uk] Screencasting was: for those unsure how to get on to irc..

[Alan Pope]

On Tue, Oct 31, 2006 at 04:40:44PM +0000, Tony Arnold wrote:
> That is really brilliant! As I've not really used IRC much before, I
> actually learned a few things too!
>

That worked then :)

Thanks very much.

> > * Run xwininfo to find out the xwindows window-id of the qemu window
> 
> Presumably this ID is fed to recordmydesktop?
> 

Yes.

For example in one terminal I type this:-

$ qemu -hda edgyxchat.qcow -net nic -net user -m 512 -soundhw all

Then, once it's running elsewhere I run xwininfo and then when prompted
click on the qemu window. This is the result:-

alan at wopr:~$ xwininfo 

xwininfo: Please select the window about which you
          would like information by clicking the
          mouse in that window.

xwininfo: Window id: 0x3200003 "QEMU"

  Absolute upper-left X:  651
  Absolute upper-left Y:  51
  Relative upper-left X:  5
  Relative upper-left Y:  24
  Width: 1024
  Height: 768
  Depth: 24
  Visual Class: DirectColor
  Border width: 0
  Class: InputOutput
  Colormap: 0x320000c (not installed)
  Bit Gravity State: ForgetGravity
  Window Gravity State: NorthWestGravity
  Backing Store State: NotUseful
  Save Under State: no
  Map State: IsViewable
  Override Redirect State: no
  Corners:  +651+51  -5+51  -5-231  +651-231
  -geometry 1024x768-0+27

Then I run recordmydesktop like this:-

alan at wopr:~$ recordmydesktop --nosound -windowid 0x3200003 
Initial recording window is set to:
X:651   Y:51    Width:1024    Height:768
Adjusted recording window is set to:
X:650   Y:50    Width:1024    Height:768
Initializing...
Capturing!
 

At this point it's now recording. I go to the qemu window (or indeed whatever window I am 
recording) and do the demo. When finished I flick back to the recordmydesktop window and hit 
CTRL+C and this happens..
  
Done.
Written 96797 bytes
(96797 of which were video data and 0 audio data)

Shutting down......
Goodbye!
alan at wopr:~$ 
    
Job done.

> > * Run recordmydesktop specifying the option to NOT record audio.
> 
> Is that because the sound recording int recordmy desktop is poor or is
> it a human interaction thing?
> 

In a nutshell, the latter. I find it hard enough to steer the mouse, take in all the 
dialogs, think about what I'm going to say without the extra hassle of actually saying it.

When I later recorded the audio I made numerous mistakes. So the ability to edit the audio in a 
simple audio editor like audacity, or in my case, just restart recording again, was beneficial. 
Given the lack of decent video editors on Linux I figured this would be a prudent decision.

Don't get me wrong though, I am not saying the audio has to be perfect, but it certainly helps 
to be understood if you're not "uhm"-ing and "ahhm"-ing all the time whilst recording.

Cheers,
Al.