Re: Screen recorder - Kazam
On 01/01/2012 07:47 PM, Sean McNamara wrote: IMHO you shouldn't directly use ffmpeg, libx264, or any other library. For all of your media needs, just use GStreamer. GStreamer has gst plugin wrappers for all of the useful ffmpeg codecs (gst-ffmpeg), and it has plugin wrappers for all of the important standalone codec libraries (including x264). The challenge is getting the user to install them. ;) gst-ffmpeg is terribly undocumented and I think there is no real need for me to use it. I need to support a handful of codecs, not every single one there is. x264enc didn't work because of unknown reasons at the time being and it really pissed me off because I know it used to work. Five minutes ago I realized why it didn't work and I got it working now. It was a serious case of PEBKAC ... To make it short, I was testing with a smaller window 800x800, H264 video size must be divisible by 2 and x264 starts counting with 0. : I'll hack x264 as an option. For starters, you could add most of the gstreamer plugins packages as either suggested or recommended in the Debian source package. If the packages somehow don't get installed automatically (they would get Right now I have base and bad plugins as a requirement and this covers everything I need. For x264 I'll also need ugly plugins package. If that is installed everything should work. you can proceed to allow the user to use the app, but you would want to make them aware that some of the supported codecs aren't available due to missing packages. This is a really neat idea. I'll probably make webm default and a requirement and x264 will be an optional feature. but on Ubuntu, I think it's there in gst-plugins-ugly in multiverse or restricted (correct me if I'm wrong). If I can read this page correctly and the information is valid, it seems that uglies are in the universe. http://packages.ubuntu.com/oneiric/libs/gstreamer0.10-plugins-ugly If you want to go with Python, I can't really help you with the implementation details, since I am only a novice at Python programming. But I can wish you lots of luck, and still help out with things like the overall codec approach. I'm still contemplating Python and Vala. I'll see what time will bring. :) I'm quite fluent in python so it would be my first choice. Vala, however, is becoming a defacto standard for Gnome development and that's why I am considering it. I'm allquixotic on freenode, so feel free to ping me. We can even create a new channel for Kazam! Not all that bad idea. I registered a channel, BigWhale will be idling there mostly. :) Regards, David -- ubuntu-desktop mailing list ubuntu-desktop@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-desktop
Re: Screen recorder - Kazam
Thanks for the response Sean, On 12/31/2011 09:03 PM, Sean McNamara wrote: Very cool! While I completely agree that these codec choices should be the default, is it easy for the user to configure Kazam to use some other codec? I'm not saying VP8/WebM is bad; rather, I'm saying some other codecs may have their uses (e.g. if you intend to distribute it as a raw video and you want the highest platform compatibility, VP8 is still not that heavily adopted on older Windows systems, or even older Linux distros). And the quality will be much higher if it is encoded directly to the format that you intend to distribute it in, rather than performing lossy transcoding. VP8 is a trade-off between quality and availability. Codecs and their support in most modern Linux distribution is still a nightmare. There are different versions of libraries that support different sets of parameters and options. VP8 is something that is available everywhere and has a decent support in GStreamer. Kazam initially encoded videos with ffmpeg and used libx264 (getting this to work on Linux is not an easy task even now. You have to build ffmpeg from source because of all the licensing and patent issues. Personally I would prefer H264 over VP8. H264 is better, performance wise and quality wise. VP8 is still a resource hog and encoding full screen video with more than 15 fps in realtime can be challenging. In the long run I want to support different codecs with some kind of auto detection what is available and what not. The best place to get started is to read https://wiki.ubuntu.com/ContributeToUbuntu -- and follow the links from there. I'll take a look there. Hopefully I can find a checklist document about inclusion in the distro. :) Although if you are able, and there are no really challenging roadblocks, you should go ahead and try with GTK3. I'd like to get rid of GTK2 as soon as possible. :) This is the very first thing on my agenda after I deal with the codec issues and ffmpeg. Are there any really low-level GTK2 APIs that Kazam uses that might've been removed or significantly changed in GTK3? I guess I could read the source, but I'm getting ready to head out the door right now, so... Kazam is written in python and uses pygtk. As far as I know pygtk is becoming obsolete fast and I'll have to do a rewrite sooner or later. I am still deciding if I should do a rewrite in Vala or keep python and use PyGobject. I am equally unfamiliar with PyGObject and Vala. :) Regards, David -- ubuntu-desktop mailing list ubuntu-desktop@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-desktop
Screen recorder - Kazam
Greetings, Recently I picked up Kazam Screencaster. I needed to record something and noticed that Kazam is not working and has some dependency issues in Oneiric. After trying out few other solutions none of them really suited me. Around Christmas I started working on Kazam and made some improvements while solving those dependency problems. Andrew Higginson stopped working on the project and made me a member of Kazam team on Launchpad so I can take over from here. https://launchpad.net/kazam Right now most of the development is done in my PPA until I get things stable enough and merge them in the stable branch of the project. https://launchpad.net/~bigwhale/+archive/kazam-oneric (yes, the typo should be there :/) Quick rundown of changes that I made: - Default backend is now gstreamer. - Video is encoded with vp8 instead of x264. - Audio is encoded with Ogg Vorbis. - Audio/Video container is now WebM. - Package dependencies revised to include only essential packages. - Basic Pulseaudio support. - Independent audio input device selection - Volume setting slider in the works - The path to multiple source recording is now open. Next release should support recoding audio on two channels (application sounds and voice-over commentary, for example). Currently Kazam is still GTK2 and I'd like few pointers on what needs to be done if I want Kazam to be included in the Ubuntu repositories for Precise Pangolin. And if I missed the mailing list, someone please kick me in the right direction. :) (more detailed explanation on my changes and future plans are posted on my blog: http://www.twm-kd.com/linux/kazam-screencaster-0-12/ ) So much for now and a Happy 2021 to everyone! Regards, David -- ubuntu-desktop mailing list ubuntu-desktop@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-desktop
Re: Screen recorder - Kazam
Hi, On Sat, Dec 31, 2011 at 2:23 PM, David Klasinc bigwh...@lubica.net wrote: Greetings, Recently I picked up Kazam Screencaster. I needed to record something and noticed that Kazam is not working and has some dependency issues in Oneiric. After trying out few other solutions none of them really suited me. Around Christmas I started working on Kazam and made some improvements while solving those dependency problems. Andrew Higginson stopped working on the project and made me a member of Kazam team on Launchpad so I can take over from here. Cool! Congrats on volunteering to maintain this project! :) I'm not familiar with Kazam, but I'm learning about it now, since it seems interesting and useful... https://launchpad.net/kazam Right now most of the development is done in my PPA until I get things stable enough and merge them in the stable branch of the project. https://launchpad.net/~bigwhale/+archive/kazam-oneric (yes, the typo should be there :/) Quick rundown of changes that I made: - Default backend is now gstreamer. - Video is encoded with vp8 instead of x264. - Audio is encoded with Ogg Vorbis. - Audio/Video container is now WebM. Very cool! While I completely agree that these codec choices should be the default, is it easy for the user to configure Kazam to use some other codec? I'm not saying VP8/WebM is bad; rather, I'm saying some other codecs may have their uses (e.g. if you intend to distribute it as a raw video and you want the highest platform compatibility, VP8 is still not that heavily adopted on older Windows systems, or even older Linux distros). And the quality will be much higher if it is encoded directly to the format that you intend to distribute it in, rather than performing lossy transcoding. - Package dependencies revised to include only essential packages. - Basic Pulseaudio support. - Independent audio input device selection - Volume setting slider in the works - The path to multiple source recording is now open. Next release should support recoding audio on two channels (application sounds and voice-over commentary, for example). Currently Kazam is still GTK2 and I'd like few pointers on what needs to be done if I want Kazam to be included in the Ubuntu repositories for Precise Pangolin. And if I missed the mailing list, someone please kick me in the right direction. :) The best place to get started is to read https://wiki.ubuntu.com/ContributeToUbuntu -- and follow the links from there. You're already very far along because you've already: -Written the software -Created a source package for DPKG -Put it in a PPA -Communicated with the community announcing your package and soliciting feedback This is a very large step in the right direction. The rest, as they say, is testing/validation and politics. :) Also I'm not 100% sure but you can probably get it accepted into Precise (in Universe, dunno about Main) with a GTK2 UI. The GTK2 libs will continue to stick around for years and years (and years) to come. Although if you are able, and there are no really challenging roadblocks, you should go ahead and try with GTK3. My general porting strategy for GTK3: 1. Build against the gtk3 libs and headers in your build system (easy) 2. Fix any compilation errors (can require some rewriting, but not that much usually) 3. Fix any linkage errors (can be painful if your favorite API is gone) 4. Test it out like crazy to make sure that everything works equivalently at runtime (time-consuming but easy) Are there any really low-level GTK2 APIs that Kazam uses that might've been removed or significantly changed in GTK3? I guess I could read the source, but I'm getting ready to head out the door right now, so... Anyway, Happy New Year to you as well, and thanks for working on this and being interested in contributing! Disclosure: I am not an Ubuntu Developer, though I do host a project on Launchpad, package it in a PPA, and have expressed interest in getting it into Universe in the past... so we are pretty much at the same stage :) Regards, -Sean (more detailed explanation on my changes and future plans are posted on my blog: http://www.twm-kd.com/linux/kazam-screencaster-0-12/ ) So much for now and a Happy 2021 to everyone! Regards, David -- ubuntu-desktop mailing list ubuntu-desktop@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-desktop -- ubuntu-desktop mailing list ubuntu-desktop@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-desktop
