Java-Screen-Recorder

Java-Screen-Recorder
Java-Screen-Recorder provides platform independent screen capture and playback, producing high quality screen recordings using an internal lossless compression algorithm. The recordings can be played back with the included screen player application, or optionally converted to the QuickTime movie format, using the included screen converter application.

The output video can be post-processed to other formats, using a video conversion tool such as ffmpeg.

The screen recorder, player and converter tools are all self contained jar files, requiring only the Java Runtime Environment for execution. These tools operate independently of any other external software codecs and libraries, to provide true platform independent video capture.

System requirements

Java version 1.6.0 (tested with version 1.6.0ga5)

Java-Screen-Recorder player on an eComStation machine with Open JDK

Installing Java-Screen-Recorder
Download java-screen-recorder-0.8.zip. Make a directory/map with the name "java-screen-recorder" or something you like. Open the zip file and copy the files "screen_converter.jar", "screen_player.jar", "screen_recorder.jar" and "readme.txt" to the new created directory/map. You don't need the other files. That's it!

The java-screen-recorder command files
The Java-Screen-Recorder programs all work with Open JDK in OS/2-eCS. I have made three command files with the following contents;

Screen_Recorder

@echo off
SET CLASSPATH= 
SET BEGINLIBPATH=[drive:java]\JAVA160ga5\bin
SET PATH=[drive:java]\JAVA160ga5\bin
[drive:java-screen-recorder]
cd [drive:java-screen-recorder]\java-screen-recorder
java -Duser.home=[drive:java-screen-recorder]\java-screen-recorder -jar screen_recorder.jar
 2>screen_recorder_bugs.txt

Screen_Player

@echo off
SET CLASSPATH= 
SET BEGINLIBPATH=[drive:java]\JAVA160ga5\bin
SET PATH=[drive:java]\JAVA160ga5\bin
[drive:java-screen-recorder]
cd [drive:java-screen-recorder]\java-screen-recorder
java -jar screen_player.jar 2>screen_player_bugs.txt

Screen_Converter

@echo off
SET CLASSPATH= 
SET BEGINLIBPATH=[drive:java]\JAVA160ga5\bin
SET PATH=[drive:java]\JAVA160ga5\bin
[drive:java-screen-recorder]
cd [drive:java-screen-recorder]\java-screen-recorder
java -jar screen_converter.jar %1 2>screen_converter_bugs.txt

I had to break up the line "java -Duser.home=..." in the command file for the Screen_Recorder in two parts for this page only. I think that you can ommit the specification when I look at the behaviour of the program, it comes back with the directory from Odin. There are 3 different command files. The reason for this is that there are 3 different programs.

I use 2 separate folders (directories), one for Java and one for Java-Screen-Recorder with the files created by this program. The references used in the cmd files;

[drive: java] = drive with Java
[drive: java-screen-recorder] = drive with Java-Screen-Recorder

should be replaced with real drive letters. Edit and save the files "screen_converter.cmd", "screen_player.cmd" and "screen_recorder.cmd" from the distribution below. These files are copied to the "java-screen-recorder" directory(folder). Furthermore, different paths?, adjust according to your needs.
Create a new program object. Specify the path and file name: "[drive: java-screen-recorder]\java-screen-recorder\screen_recorder.cmd". In the tabpage Session check the boxes "OS/2 window", "Running as an icon" and "Close Window to end program". In the tabpage General you can enter the name "Screen-Recorder". You find enclosed in the file an OS/2 icon. Do the same for the other two command files.

Parameters / options explained

The specification "-Duser.home=[drive: java-screen-recorder]\java-screen-recorder" ensures that the Screen-Recorder will save all necessary files in own directory instead of saving them in the home directory. The other two programs doesn't do anything with this specification.
The addition "2>screen_recorder_bugs.txt" (as an example) ensures that errors are saved in the file "screen_recorder_bugs.txt". The 2 in "2>" is not a typo! The bug files stay empty on my system. You can omit this part If you don't want bug reports.

What it does
The "Screen_Recorder" program has a very tiny window, you can see it in the picture at the top-left. The only thing you can do is to start or to stop a recording. After stopping you get a file menu for saving the file as an "*.cap" file.
The "Screen_Player" program does have its own menu bar with 6 buttons at the top. First you have to load a "*.cap" file (there are no other options) and then you can set it in motion with the button "Play". The screen size is adjusted automaticly.
The "Screen_Converter" program is a so called CLI-pogram from Command Line Interface. Therefore you find "%1" after "screen_converter.jar" for the specification of the "*.cap" file. This program converts a "*.cap" file to a "*.mov" file (movie), to give you an idea, about 1.2Mb file is converted to a file with the size of around 66Mb. Testing with other try-outs gives for every second an increase of about 2.25Mb. You can save the "*.cap" file in a other directory then where the programs reside. The converted "*.mov" file will be saved in the same directory as it source.

Download
In the file you can find the above command files (all driveletters are set to C:) and 3 OS/2 Java-Screen-Recorder icons: java-screen-recorder-ecs.zip.

revision July 14, 2020