Documentation:Modules/screen

Module: screen
Type	Access
First VLC version	-
Last VLC version	-
Operating system(s)	all
Description	screen capture
Shortcut(s)	-

Stream or save a video of your computer screen.

Options

• screen-caching <integer> : Time in milliseconds

• screen-fps <integer> : Capture frames per second default value: 0

• screen-fragment-size <integer> : (Windows only) Optimize the capture by fragmenting the screen in chunks of predefined height (16 might be a good value, and 0 means disabled) default value: 0

• screen-top <integer> : The top edge coordinate of the subscreen. (New in VLC 0.9.0 on x11, New in VLC 1.0.0 on Windows) default value: 0

• screen-left <integer> : The left edge coordinate of the subscreen. (New in VLC 0.9.0 on x11, New in VLC 1.0.0 on Windows) default value: 0

• screen-width <integer> : The width of the subscreen. (New in VLC 0.9.0 on x11, New in VLC 1.0.0 on Windows) default value: <full screen width>

• screen-height <integer> : The height of the subscreen. (New in VLC 0.9.0 on x11, New in VLC 1.0.0 on Windows) default value: <full screen height>

• screen-follow-mouse, no-screen-follow-mouse : Follow the mouse when capturing a subscreen. (New in VLC 0.9.0 on x11, New in VLC 1.0.0 on Windows) default value: no-screen-follow-mouse

• screen-mouse-image <filename> : (Windows only) Mouse pointer image to use. If specified, the pointer will be overlayed on the captured video. (New in VLC 1.0.0) default value: ""

screen-mouse-image notes: - The registration point is (at least by defualt) at the top left corner of image. - File location is relative to your VLC installation folder

Run...

% vlc -H

...for the definitive options for your version.

Example

Capture a screen:

% vlc screen:// --screen-fps=1 --screen-width=100 --screen-height=100

The screen thus captured is 100x100 pixels in from the top left corner of the active screen.

Show mouse on screen:

% vlc screen:// --screen-fps=30 :screen-mouse-image=file:///c:/cursorimage.png

Questions

How to save? Where is the file saved?

Example of a file save (:file{dst=D:\\savedir.mp4}):

% vlc screen:// :sout=#transcode{vcodec=h264,vb=0,scale=0,acodec=mpga,ab=128,channels=2,samplerate=44100}:file{dst=D:\\savedir.mp4} :sout-keep :screen-mouse-image=file:///c:/cursorimage.png

How to get audio to work?

On a dual head monitor, how to make sure the recording is happening on target monitor?

Commands I've used

vlc screen:// --dshow-fps=29.950001 --nooverlay --sout #transcode{vcodec=h264,vb=800, scale=0.5,acodec=mp3,ab=128,channels=2} :duplicate{dst=std{access=file, mux=mp4,dst=/home/user/Desktop/test.flv}}

Produced a black screen... on my Fedora 12 machine.

Screenshot

The following screenshot is unrelated to the previous demonstration.

One user created a Droste effect with a screen feed of the screen feed. Click the image to view full-size.

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