HowTo Create A Screencast

This page provides some notes on creating Screencasts using a NST system.

Installing Packages

We have found that the gtk-recordmydesktop provides a simple and free method for capturing screens and producing a screen cast. The totem package provides a viewer for the Ogg Video format screencasts (the VLC media player is also capable of playing back these files). To install these packages:

yum install gtk-recordmydesktop totem

Capturing

To create your screencast:

• Launch the gtk-recordMyDesktop application. From the GNOME Desktop, it should be found under the Applications | Sound & Video menu.

• There are numerous Advanced Options that can be adjusted before starting your capture. If you are only intending on capturing a single window, you may want to consider turning off the Include Window Decorations option (especially if your window contains a Virtual Machine, VNC, or RDP session).

• After adjusting your options and selecting a window (if not recording the entire desktop), you can press the Record button to start the recording.

• The small red record button on the GNOME panel will turn into a small gray square stop button. At this point you can start talking and using the application.

• When you are done press the small square button on the GNOME panel.

• At this point the raw screen capture data will be encoded and the output file will be saved. By default this will be save to the file $HOME/out.ogv unless you press the Save As button before recording.

It's highly recommended to make a short test screencast to verify your settings (it's easy to have the wrong sound device selected).