need serious help with sound recording

[clair]

Hi,
Upcoming presentation demands that I record my desktop activity along with sound. And I've trying for a couple of days now to succeed. I'm using xvidcap which seems like a really good program -- the video is perfect. At first the recording data said Audio Codec: NONE. But, then I managed (after changing the pref. line to /dev/snd and installing Gnome Also Mixer) to at least get it to say Audio Codec: MP3.

But there is no sound during playback. And I dont' know if the little green vumeter in xvidcap is supposed to move or not during recording, but it doesn't.

Anyway, I've no idea where to go from here. And I really need help. I'm dedicated to this until I get it working.

I'm running Mint 12, and I can happily play class videos and youtube videos with sound.

Very heartfelt thanks to anyone who can help!

later - installed pavucontrol and ran it prior to xvidcap - no change.
In desperation tried recordmydesktop -- that doesn't even run. Well, it does, until I push the record button and then it says it can't write a file. So I have uninstalled that. I've also tried rebooting after trying various things. Nothing helps.

[wilbobob]

I can't help so far, but it might aid others if you let us know whether you are trying to record on a laptop internal mic, a usb item or one plugged into an audio port. And it wouldn't harm to specify the computer you're using. It all helps

[rich2005]

Xvid is old and difficult to set up, Hav'nt tried it for years and then I never got it to record with a decent frame rate.

Recordmydesktop-gui uses ogv as the video container, good container but terrible to edit.

I normally use another linux for desktop capture, installed this LMDE a couple of weeks ago, dual booting. For some reason the quality is terrible. Should not be as it is the same hardware I normally use.

I always add the sound after editing the video, but video+sound can be done, try a command line.

ffmpeg -f x11grab -xerror -r 15 -s 960x720 -i :0.0+80,60 -vcodec mpeg4 -b 1000 -qscale 5 -f alsa -i hw:0,0 -ar 44100 -bt 256k -y `date +%s`.avi

this records to avi @ 15 fps -s is a capture size -i is an offset, try it, see if you get a result. It was horrible here.

a modified one for mpeg video (you can always convert after) that might be better is this

ffmpeg -f x11grab -xerror -r 25 -s 960x720 -i :0.0+80,60 -f alsa -i hw:0,0 -ar 44100 -bt 256k -y `date +%s`.mpg

the hw:0,0 is your sound card, a good way of checking it is with audacity, see what works there.

This is a quick trial, just as proof of working, I can do much better in my other linux.


http://youtu.be/jalIMPv-Pek

[clair]

I can use a bare sound recorder and it records the sound.

But I need to do this for teaching where I write on the tablet and talk while I'm doing it.

I will try the suggestions, but don't hold out much hope. I really hope someday this kind of thing works off the bat in Linux -- it is a big minus in this day of multi-media.

Will let you know how I come out. But, I am on a new HP desktop. Nothing peculiar about it.

Anyway -- may have to fall back on Windows which I really hate to do.

Stay tuned!