How to Capture the Screen Using VLC for ScreenCasting

VLC is a player but also can be used to record a screen cast ( capture the screen as video).Here is the small how to do that. This works with portable VLC too. Start the VLC By going to the installation folder and running the command

>> vlc screen://

It will open the VLC and shows the screen exactly. It actually is streaming the screen


Now go to File and select Wizard

Select the option Transcode and Save the file. And click next

Select the option existing playlist and select screen:// to record

Give the name of the file you want the screencast to be saved as (don’t have to give file extn)

Now VLC is recording your screenactivities.Minimize the VLC and do what you want to do.When you want to stop it. Click on the stop button. You will have the video saved at the location given by you above.

Note: This was the most read blog post on TechMag. Unfortunately lost all the content there. I have reproduced the same post here for the readers benefit. Thanks.

26 Responses

  1. Thanks Thej for the useful info.

  2. Arun says:

    Hi Thej,

    Really glad to meet a technophile in blogspace with similar interests as mine (and in the same company). You have some pretty useful tips (like this one!), so I have subscribed to your feed. All the best!

  3. S says:

    Excellent Thej…Never knew vlc had such a power even though I have been using it for a long time :)

  4. Remi Gillig says:

    The sound is not captured for me. Any idea why?

  5. itdincor says:

    Well, thank you so much. As one of the computer semi-illiterati, such info is a great help to me.

    Thanks again.

    Ken Johnson
    Sand Point Alaska

  6. Abhijeet says:

    I had experimented a bit with gtk-recordmydesktop and Istanbul desktop recorder while recording the Gwt-Ext screencasts on Ubuntu. Didn’t know VLC could do this too!

    Thanx for the info!

  7. Veera says:

    Gr8 article. Found really helpful!

  8. ManojVasanth says:

    Really useful! Thanks :)

  9. Gautam says:

    Tejesh,

    I just tried what you have given and must say, there has been a lot of changes from what it was to what it is now !

    Also, there are a lot of other free software which do the job much quicker and easier.

    My two cents :)

    /Gautam

  10. Thejesh GN says:

    @Gautam : I am sure there are many ways, this is just one of them :)

  11. Pat says:

    Using VLC 1.0.0 on OS X. I’m also not able to record sound. I would really love to get this working because a Free and Open Source way to screencast on a Mac would be the ideal solution for my students to show some of their work…

    Help please…

    Cheers!

  12. jasper says:

    Thanks!

    note that in the recent vlc version there is a built-in option for video screen capture:

    Media>convert/save>Capture device[tab]>capture mode: desktop

    :-)
    cheers,
    J

  13. Compumedik says:

    Hi, when i capture the screen… mouse pointer does not get captured so actual point of CLICK and pointer navigation is not visible.
    How can i resolve/ work around this?

  14. JILF says:

    Same Problem here!
    No mouse pointer during screencast recording. Apperantly it can be activated (I use the German interface, so its all translated: Extras –> Settings –> show ALL options –> Input/Codecs –> Acess-Module –> Desktop

    BUT its not working, because you need a picture, which means jpg, png or something like that. I use almost alway ubuntu, but just in this moment I have unfortuatly work with windows, and mouse pointers are not pictures.

  15. rigl says:

    With VLC 1.1.1 I activated the mouse pointer as proposed by JILF. Additionally I created a small picture (a bmp) with an arrow, and specified it as the mouse pointer picture. This doesn’t look great, but it works. The picture shows where the mouse pointer has been during recording.

  16. janmejai says:

    Now it’s been old The VLC has been updates and now it’s not working properly please update it

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  19. Dillphred says:

    i use kmplayer everyday, i would recommend it to anyone.

  20. gulshad says:

    simply worked. very helpful.

  21. SRI says:

    To capture your desktop screen follow this link for video tutorial

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n-miLXpXiUw

  22. Dwayne says:

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    Look into my web page – Divergent Online Full Movie (Dwayne)

  1. July 10, 2008

    […] howto capture the screen using vlc for screencasting […]

  2. June 25, 2009

    […] Mas ainda não encontrei nada que realmente atende-se às minhas necessidades nesta área. Li uma notícia promissora sobre o uso do VLC e fui aos […]

  3. July 7, 2009

    […] I found out that it is possible to do a screencast using VLC!(1, 2) I have known about VLC for a long time and its capability to play multiple video and audio formats […]

  4. July 2, 2010

    […] browserul şi o webaplicaţie care, la rândul ei, foloseşte Java. Spre surpriza mea am aflat, via jasper că pot face asta direct din VLC. Mai jos voi arăta cum se face din ultima versiune (1.1.0). […]

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