[HOWTO] Take a video using scrcpy

Sometimes a video is more explicit than words or screenshots ! (please avoid dirty comments :wink: ).
So you may want to show exactly what’s happening on your phone, without storing any file on it, here is how to.
Rem : if you feel comfortable with the Recorder app, storing the video on your phone, you can simply use it instead; thanks @harvey186 for the reminder !

  1. “chérie, j’ai oublié les gosses !”
    You must have :
  • a working phone :wink:
  • developer mode with adb on your computer (Windows, Linux, MacOS). This is well explained in this howto
  • scrcpy : https://github.com/Genymobile/scrcpy
  • a working USB cable between your computer and your phone or a working WiFi network
  1. “show me one finger … or two”
    As you want to show what you’re doing, activate “Show taps” in Developer Options :

  2. “Houston, we’re go”
    Plug your phone to USB (*see alternate below) and start scrcpy

  • no need to pre-launch adb server, scrcpy has his own
  • ensure all files are here, and you have enough free space on your drive :
    image
  1. “I know what you did last summer”
    scrcpy is starting :
    image
  • you can act on your phone, or on the clone window on your computer
  • when done, just close the clone window on your computer, the video gets recorded :slight_smile: image
  1. “Daya think I’m sexy ?”
    You can now upload it to your favorite /e/ cloud, and share it. Example : Disable keypad vibrate - Samsung 7 - #10 by smu44

3-alternate) “where the Alliance comes to help”

  • de-activate mobile network data
  • connect the phone to the same WiFi network as your computer, and activate OTA debugging in your phone :
  • note the IP address and the port :
  • connect via WiFi using IP+port & start magic remote control :
    image
  • expect some lag :wink:

Want more control ?

  • scrcpy come with some keyboard shortcuts, just launch scrcpy -h ! You may like ctrl-h, ctrl-b, ctrl-s, ctrl-r :wink:
  • you can also play with framerate, bitrate, video encoding, …
  • If you’re really an opened mind, you can also share your phone via mobile network …

With gratefully respect to @Manoj, @manish, and all other good guys :pray:

2 Likes

Why don’t use the default ‘Recorder’ App ?

I could, but the purpose here is to use scrcpy :wink:

I had some problems with Recorder app including a corrupt file, so I don’t feel comfortable with it.
So I find that the solution of capturing the screen from the outside and not storing the video on the phone is more reliable.
This is just a personal opinion, of course.

Thanks @harvey186, you reminded me i forgot to mention the storage aspect :slight_smile: