Screencast

How to record Linux desktop movies

Run gtk-recordmydesktop, click on Select Window and then click in the window to be recorded. Then click Record to start recording.

To stop recording click on the Stop-sign icon on the upper right of the Ubuntu title bar. This will open a new window that shows disk write progress as it produces the OGV video file in ~/out.ogv (or ~/out-1.ogv if it already exists).

It seems to add a border around the window, 16 pixels on the side and 40 pixels on the top.

Youtube won't accept OGG video files, so convert it to mpeg4:

ffmpeg \
      -i ~/out-1.ogv \
      -filter:v "crop=1920:1080:16:40" \
      -vcodec mpeg4 \
      -qscale 3 \
      -acodec libmp3lame \
      -aq 4 \
      ~/output.mp4

You can omit the -filter line if you want to include the title bar.

After uploading to youtube, convert to gifs with gifs.com or other service.

Hacks 2017

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Last update: November 8, 2020