How to capture screen on Wayland with pipewire?
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Shmerl Jul 4, 2022
Any recommendation how to capture screen using some minimalist tools like ffmpeg? I didn't find any info on ffmpeg / pipewire integration. Is there anything else (besides using something full blown OBS)?
kit89 Jul 4, 2022
Pipewire should act as a PulseAudio system.

If you type:

 
pactl info


You should see something around the lines of:

 
Server Name: PulseAudio (on PipeWire 0.3.53)
Server Version: 15.0.0
Default Sample Specification: float32le 2ch 48000Hz
Default Channel Map: front-left,front-right
Default Sink: alsa_output.usb-MOTU_M4_M4AE0CDBMD-00.analog-surround-40


If you do, then following the documentation here: https://trac.ffmpeg.org/wiki/Capture/PulseAudio should be fine.

I tested this with my own machine and it works as expected.
Shmerl Jul 4, 2022
That's for audio. I need to capture the screen. OBS works, but I was interested in something more lightweight.

Last edited by Shmerl on 4 July 2022 at 8:53 pm UTC
kit89 Jul 4, 2022
This documentation shows how to use ffmpeg to capture the screen: https://trac.ffmpeg.org/wiki/Capture/Desktop

You can capture both audio and the screen with one command operation, or you can trigger screen and audio capture independently and then mix the two together later with a Video Editor.
Shmerl Jul 4, 2022
Nah, no good either. x11grab is X11 only obviously. And they don't have Pipewire integration. The only other option is kmsgrab, but that had some kind of issue with pixel format.
Shmerl Jul 5, 2022
I ended up using OBS for now. It works very well actually. I'm surprised there no some CLI tool for that though.

Last edited by Shmerl on 5 July 2022 at 3:43 am UTC
LilaBortz Jul 15, 2022
I am using GNOME to capture the screen. Because it is the quick and easiest way to record your screen. But it doesn't record any sound tho.
Shmerl Feb 27
Any news on this? I'm trying to figure out if ffmpeg can capture the screen through pipewire or it's still lagging behind with that? OBS can already do it.
whizse Feb 27
Doesn't seeem to be a priority Feature request with zero replies here:
https://trac.ffmpeg.org/ticket/10742
peta77 Feb 27
Does SimpleScreenRecorder support wayland nowadays? I don't know and the SSR-Homepage doesn't say anything about it. Haven't looked at the source either.
But it's simple and does wonderfully capture screen and audio.
Shmerl Feb 27
I need ffmpeg specifically since it's not just for recording a screen, I want to stream a window over LAN.

OBS can do it, but there are issues with that too.

Last edited by Shmerl on 27 February 2024 at 3:12 pm UTC
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