[PLUG] Linux equivalent to Camtasia

David Mandel dmandel at pdxLinux.org
Sun Nov 6 08:44:12 UTC 2011


There seem to be a lot of tools for doing screencasting in Linux
including Istanbul, recordMyDesktop, xvidcap, wink,  pyvnc2swf,
byzanz, vnc2swf, ffmpeg, and a few others.  Unlike Camtasia most of
the Linux solutions do not include video/audio editing software in the
package so if you need that you need to move the output of these
packages into openshot, LiVES, keno, or other editing software.

Personally, I use ffmpeg which is a nice simple command line tool.
I generally use commands something like:

 xrandr -s 1280x720
     To reduce my screen resolution.
     My computer just isn't fast enough to capture things are full
resolution without an
     unacceptable lag between the audio and video.  I can avoid this
by reducing my capture
     rate (fps) or by reducing my resolution or by capturing the video
and audio separately and
     resyncing them in openshot or other editing software.  Of these
choices, I find simply
     reducing the screen resolution to be the best compromise for my
particular situation.

sleep 870; xmessage -g -125+60 Time for Intermission
     This sends me a message telling me when to end my video after 14
min 30 sec.

sleep 5; ffmpeg -t 00:14:59 -f oss -i /dev/dsp -f x11grab -s 1280x720
-r 25 -i :0.0 MyVideo.avi
     This creates a 15 minute video (unless I manually end it earlier).

This system seems to work pretty well - although once in a while I
wish I could pause a video
in the middle of it and go back and restart it.  (Of course, I can
effectively do this by cutting and
splicing in my editing software, but I avoid editing as much as
possible because editing is very
slow and time consuming.)

Hope this helps,

David Mandel
On Wed, Nov 2, 2011 at 9:10 AM, MJang <mike at linuxexam.com> wrote:
> Folks,
>
> Just wondering if there's a Linux equivalent to Camtasia, for recording
> "lecture"-like demos. I'd like to be able to switch between OOo Impress
> presentations and active views of the command line / other admin tools.
> If it matters, I think my publisher would be looking for AVI files.
>
> I've heard xvidtune can do such, but don't see any clues from the man
> page (or my searches), except some references that suggest that it would
> be too crude for production.
>
> All I can find for Camstudio are Win .exe files.
>
> Any other suggestions would be appreciated.
>
> Thanks,
> Mike
>
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