OF better screen captures!

We find another solution to record openFrameworks video ouput that solve the restriction to have specific resolution 1920x1080 or less.

Thanks to Nick Hardeman to implement ofxFFmpegRecorder OF addons.

ofxFFmpegRecorder needs ffmpeg, the cross-platform tool for AV conversion. To install it you can use homebrew from OSX Terminal:

brew install ffmpeg

If you haven’t homebrew yet on your system just type this on Terminal:

/usr/bin/ruby -e "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/master/install)"

Now you can download ofxFFmpegRecorder and put it inside your OF addons folder.

In order to speed up the fbo reading process we use ofxFastFboReader of Satoru Higa. Download and put it inside your OF addons folder.

With OF projectGenerator add these two addons to your project.

To record you screen capture as a movie you need to add this lines to some of your main project files.

ofApp.h (include)

#include "ofxFFmpegRecorder.h"
#include "ofxFastFboReader.h"

ofApp.h

    ofxFFmpegRecorder    vidRecorder;
    ofFbo                recordFbo;
    ofPixels             recordPixels;
    ofxFastFboReader     reader;

ofApp.cpp - inside setup() (check if the parameters of your capture are “prores” (codec), “2000K” (bitrate), ofGetWidth() (width), ofGetHeight() (height))

    vidRecorder.setup(true, false, glm::vec2(ofGetWidth(), ofGetHeight()));
    vidRecorder.setOverWrite(true);
    vidRecorder.setFFmpegPathToAddonsPath();
    vidRecorder.setFps(60);
    vidRecorder.setVideoCodec("prores");
    vidRecorder.setBitRate(2000000);
    
    recordFbo.allocate( ofGetWidth(), ofGetHeight(), GL_RGB );

ofApp.cpp - inside draw()

    recordFbo.begin();
    ofClear(0,0,0,255);

	//put your draw code here
    
    recordFbo.end();
    
    
    if (vidRecorder.isRecording()) {
        //  ofxFastFboReader is used to speed this up :)
        reader.readToPixels(recordFbo, recordPixels);
        
        if (recordPixels.getWidth() > 0 && recordPixels.getHeight() > 0) {
            vidRecorder.addFrame(recordPixels);
        }
    }
    
    //need if you want to visualize your output on the screen
    recordFbo.draw(0,0,recordFbo.getWidth(),recordFbo.getHeight());

ofApp.cpp - inside keyPressed(int key)

   if (key == 'R') {
        if (vidRecorder.isRecording()) {
            // stop
            cout << "STOP RECORDING.." <<endl;
            vidRecorder.stop();
        }
        else {
            cout << "START RECORDING.." <<endl;
            ofFilePath f;
            string myPath = f.getUserHomeDir() + "/Desktop/grab_"+ofGetTimestampString()+".mov";
            cout << myPath << endl;
            vidRecorder.setOutputPath(myPath);
            vidRecorder.startCustomRecord();
        }
    }

That’s all. You can now run your project and start and stop recording pressing ‘R’ on your keyboard.