Here is a nice piece of software for creating screencasts (video recordings of what you can see and do on your screen, for instance for demonstration or training purposes): pyvnc2swf. It is an open source package, running on both Linux and Windows. It requires that you first install:
- Python (version 2.3 or above)
- pygame (version 1.6 or above) and optionally pymedia
- a VNC server such as tightvnc server
You then install pyvnc2swf and launch it with a command line such as: c:\Python24\python.exe vnc2swf.py -o test.swf localhost:0 This will launch a nice small GUI from which you can start and stop your recording. This package also provides edition utilities so that you can edit or convert the video file that is created. Several video formats are supported.
In order to protect your machine and prevent any hacker to use your VNC server to take control of your computer, go to VNC options (tightvnc: right click on the tray icon, then « properties » and « Advanced » button for advanced options) and make sure that:
- you setup a secure password (long enough, with letters, numbers and special characters)
- you allow loopback connections (connections from your local machine)
- you ONLY allow loopback connections (refuse any connection coming from anywhere else)
- you select « query console for incoming connection » so that a popup window will ask for your confirmation everyonce someone (maybe yourself using pyvnc2swf) tries to connect to your VNC server to see (and maybe control) what’s happening on your screen