Open Avidemux, then open your movie. We are going to remove the bits of the movie we don't want. Click the A button at the bottom of the window to select the beginning of the section you wish to remove. In this example we are going to remove the section of the movie that shows me starting xvidcap.
Press Play, Next Frame, or use the scroll bar to go to the end of the part you wish to remove. Click the B button at the bottom of the window to select the end. Click the Edit menu item at the top of the window and select Delete. If you play the movie now you will see that the part you selected between the A and B markers is now gone.
This is a vidcap of the editing of the original vidcap. It's getting recursive now.
Do you want to add a soundtrack? I chose to use the song J-Nic Beatz by Andrew Stevens licensed under a Creative Commons attribution only license to perk up the video a bit. You may have to cut the length of the song down to the length of the video. Audacity is perfect for this.
In Avidemux with the video open select Audio at the top of the window, then Main Track. In the Audio Selector window select External PCM if your sound file is an uncompressed .WAV file, External MP2/3 if it is an MP3 file, or External AC3 if it is an AC3 file. Hit OK, choose the sound file you wish to use, then hit Save.
Here is our final edited Teenage Zombies video with sound.
These techniques can be used in a variety of different ways. Be creative! If you want to do some more advanced editing of your video, try Kino or KDEnlive. Experiment, post your video to the web, burn your new how-to video to DVD, show off what your computer can do.
Do you have any questions or suggestions on making desktop videos? What other programs would you use? Leave a comment or email me.
Article comments
1 - Kingsley
Nice guide. XVidCap is too laggy to record gameplay though. Is there a way to record and save it as a gif image?
2 - Nick Presta
I much prefer recordMyDesktop to xvidcap. rMD has a GTK frontend too (gtk-recordMyDesktop) which works in a similar way to xvidcap.
Thanks for the Avidemux though.
Kingsley, byzanz is the only desktop recorder I know of that will record to GIF format. You might want to check it out.
3 - orthonovum
how about telling us how you converted them to those nifty flash videos we are looking at on this page :)
4 - robos
Take a look at wink, not OSS but works quite good.
5 - dune73
My workstation is much to slow for xvidcap and also the nice recordmydesktop mentioned. However, detouring over VNC worked out. I used vnc2swf.
6 - anonymous
According to the webside everyone should make sure that they are using the newer version of xvidcap, i was using the older xcap and it was painful, so thanks for this post.
The old versions have a different ui, so they are pretty easy to tell apart.
7 - delfick
there is also the capture plugin for beryl found in beryl svn :D
it works really really really well :D
8 - delfick
here, have a little video i made that shows it :D
for more information visit here and i'm running
AMD Athlon 64 3500+ (in 32 bit mode)
1 gig RAM
Nvidia 6600GT PCIE
Nvidia's method (instead of xgl or aiglx)
ubuntu edgy
gnome
latest beryl svn
9 - bob
i leik use teh fraps dat i got from teh dlsite itwas leik 1 yer ago and it leik is mutch beterr tan teh xvidclax dat is dificlut and stuf
10 - redtux
ffmpeg -f x11grab -vd x11:0.0 -qscale 3 -an -s $size $timerec -r 12 -y file.avi
where size is resolution of screen and time how long you want to record
11 - Jim Davis
Nice tutorial, i am really keen to give this a try.
12 - asma
how can I record the sound comes out of me spekers at the same time I record my screen??!
13 - smita
i like it.its easy to use and install!
14 - Farad
Very cool, tried on SLED10, working fine, great for creating tutorials..
15 - popo
time needs -t
and the name of the video device is ????? in which distro????
16 - j
all video captures i have tryed are buggy as hell
dont even bother
17 - Lukas
My recorded video is too fast