libcapture C++ library

libcapture is a multiplatform C++ library that allows to capture your screen and optionally microphone audio, built with FFmpeg.

Dependences

• CMake >= 2.8
• FFmpeg >= 4.4.1 (>= 5.0 on macOS)
• screen-capture-recorder-to-video-windows-free >= 0.12.11 (only for Windows)

Currently supported audio/video formats

Type of Format	Linux	macOS	Windows
Video Format	x11grab	avfoundation	dshow
Audio Format	alsa	avfoundation	dshow

Currently supported audio/video devices

Type of Device	Linux	macOS	Windows
Video device	screen	screen, webcam	screen, webcam
Audio device	microphone	microphone	microphone, system audio

Install FFmpeg

Under Windows, you can install FFmpeg by clicking here. Make sure to add C:\FFmpeg\FFmpeg\bin on your Path variable. Additionally, to ensure proper operation of screen-capture you need to install screen-capture-recorder-to-video-windows-free.

Under Linux, you can install FFmpeg by opening your terminal and running the following command

sudo apt-get -yq update && sudo apt-get -yq install cmake libsdl2-dev libavcodec-dev libavfilter-dev libpostproc-dev libavformat-dev libavutil-dev  libswresample-dev libswscale-dev libavdevice-dev

Finally, under macOS, you can install FFmpeg by opening your terminal and running the following command

brew install cmake ffmpeg

Install libcapture

Using the cmake FetchContent directives you can directly setup libcapture as follows

include(FetchContent)

FetchContent_Declare(
        libcapture
        GIT_REPOSITORY https://github.com/giulio98/libcapture.git
)
FetchContent_MakeAvailable(libcapture)
# create your executable 
# and whatever you need for
# your project ...
target_link_libraries(<your_executable> libcapture)

Windows

Let's see an example on how to install and use libcapture in Windows. After installing ffmpeg, as described in Install FFmpeg, your CMakeLists.txt should look like this

cmake_minimum_required(VERSION 3.20)
project(myproject)
add_definitions(-DWINDOWS)
set(CMAKE_CXX_STANDARD 17)

set(EXECUTABLE_OUTPUT_PATH ${PROJECT_SOURCE_DIR}/bin)

include(FetchContent)

FetchContent_Declare(
        libcapture
        GIT_REPOSITORY https://github.com/giulio98/libcapture.git
)
FetchContent_MakeAvailable(libcapture)
add_executable(myexe main.cpp)
target_link_libraries(myexe libcapture)

As an example main.cpp can be recorder.cpp.

If your project doesn't compile, probably it's because you are not using a proper compiler, you can use either MSVC or minGW64 you can find here a guide to install minGW64, make sure to add C:\msys64\mingw64\bin in the path of your environment variable.

At this step you will have under bin your executable.

In order to run your executable you must add the ffmpeg dlls, that you can find under C:\FFmpeg\FFmpeg\bin, in the same folder of your executable.

Linux

Let's see another example on how to install libcapture in Linux. After installing ffmpeg, your CMakeLists.txt should look like this

cmake_minimum_required(VERSION 3.20)
project(myproject)
add_definitions(-DLINUX)
set(CMAKE_CXX_STANDARD 17)

set(EXECUTABLE_OUTPUT_PATH ${PROJECT_SOURCE_DIR}/bin)
set(CMAKE_CXX_FLAGS "${CMAKE_CXX_FLAGS} -std=c++11 -pthread")
include(FetchContent)

FetchContent_Declare(
        libcapture
        GIT_REPOSITORY https://github.com/giulio98/libcapture.git
)
FetchContent_MakeAvailable(libcapture)
add_executable(myexe main.cpp)
target_link_libraries(myexe libcapture)

As before, you can fill main.cpp with the code provided in recorder.cpp. Then you can run your executable.

Usage

// Create your capturer
Capturer capturer;

// Set video parameters (by default, record whole screen)
VideoParameters params;
// Set the framerate
params.setFramerate(30);

// Start recording (macOS)
std::string video_device = "1";
std::string audio_device = "0";
std::string output_file = "output.mp4";
std::future<void> f = capturer.start(video_device, audio_device, output_file, params);

// Wait on the future for exceptions in another thread...
// f.get();

// Pause
capturer.pause();

// Resume
capturer.resume();

// Stop
capturer.stop();