How to record screen in android more than 3 minutes programmatically?

Question

I trying to work with screen recording on Android 4.4. I found an example of code, but there cannot write more than 3-minutes video. How can I work around this Android limitation? In some apps like Rec. this limitation has been removed.

This is the example that I use.

public class MainActivity extends Activity {
private static final int RUNNING_NOTIFICATION_ID = 73;
private static final int FINISHED_NOTIFICATION_ID = 1337;

@Override
protected void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
    super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
    setContentView(R.layout.activity_main);

    if (savedInstanceState == null) {
        getFragmentManager().beginTransaction()
                .add(R.id.container, new MainFragment())
                .commit();
    }
}

public static class MainFragment extends Fragment {
    private Context mContext;

    private EditText mWidthEditText;
    private EditText mHeightEditText;
    private EditText mBitrateEditText;
    private EditText mTimeEditText;
    private Button mRecordButton;

    public MainFragment() {
    }

    @Override
    public View onCreateView(LayoutInflater inflater, ViewGroup container,
                             Bundle savedInstanceState) {
        View rootView = inflater.inflate(R.layout.fragment_main, container, false);

        mContext = getActivity();

        mRecordButton = (Button) rootView.findViewById(R.id.btn_record);
        mRecordButton.setOnClickListener(RecordOnClickListener);

        mWidthEditText = (EditText) rootView.findViewById(R.id.et_width);
        mHeightEditText = (EditText) rootView.findViewById(R.id.et_height);
        mBitrateEditText = (EditText) rootView.findViewById(R.id.et_bitrate);
        mBitrateEditText.addTextChangedListener(BitrateTextWatcher);
        mTimeEditText = (EditText) rootView.findViewById(R.id.et_time);
        mTimeEditText.addTextChangedListener(TimeTextWatcher);

        return rootView;
    }

    private TextWatcher BitrateTextWatcher = new TextWatcher() {
        @Override
        public void beforeTextChanged(CharSequence charSequence, int i, int i2, int i3) {
            // Not used.
        }

        @Override
        public void onTextChanged(CharSequence charSequence, int i, int i2, int i3) {
            if (TextUtils.isEmpty(charSequence)) {
                return;
            }

            int value = Integer.valueOf(charSequence.toString());
            if (value > 50 || value == 0) {
                mBitrateEditText.setError(mContext.getString(R.string.error_bitrate_edittext));
                return;
            }

            mTimeEditText.setError(null);
        }

        @Override
        public void afterTextChanged(Editable editable) {
            // Not used.
        }
    };

    private TextWatcher TimeTextWatcher = new TextWatcher() {
        @Override
        public void beforeTextChanged(CharSequence charSequence, int i, int i2, int i3) {
            // Not used.
        }

        @Override
        public void onTextChanged(CharSequence charSequence, int i, int i2, int i3) {
            if (TextUtils.isEmpty(charSequence)) {
                return;
            }

            int value = Integer.valueOf(charSequence.toString());
            if (value > 180 || value == 0) {
                mTimeEditText.setError(mContext.getString(R.string.error_time_editext));
                return;
            }

            mTimeEditText.setError(null);
        }

        @Override
        public void afterTextChanged(Editable editable) {
            // Not used.
        }
    };

    private View.OnClickListener RecordOnClickListener = new View.OnClickListener() {
        @Override
        public void onClick(View view) {
            if (!TextUtils.isEmpty(mTimeEditText.getError()) || !TextUtils.isEmpty(mBitrateEditText.getError())) {
                Toast.makeText(mContext, mContext.getString(R.string.toast_invalid_values), Toast.LENGTH_LONG).show();
                return;
            }

            boolean widthSet = !TextUtils.isEmpty(mWidthEditText.getText());
            boolean heightSet = !TextUtils.isEmpty(mHeightEditText.getText());
            if ((!widthSet && heightSet) || (widthSet && !heightSet)) {
                Toast.makeText(mContext, mContext.getString(R.string.error_invalid_wxh), Toast.LENGTH_LONG).show();
                return;
            }

            boolean bitrateSet = !TextUtils.isEmpty(mBitrateEditText.getText());
            boolean timeSet = !TextUtils.isEmpty(mTimeEditText.getText());

            StringBuilder stringBuilder = new StringBuilder("/system/bin/screenrecord");
            if (widthSet) {
                stringBuilder.append(" --size ").append(mWidthEditText.getText()).append("x").append(mHeightEditText.getText());
            }
            if (bitrateSet) {
                stringBuilder.append(" --bit-rate ").append(mBitrateEditText.getText());
            }
            if (timeSet) {
                stringBuilder.append(" --time-limit ").append(mTimeEditText.getText());
            }

            // TODO User definable location.
            stringBuilder.append(" ").append(Environment.getExternalStorageDirectory().toString()).append("/recording.mp4");
            Log.d("TAG", "comamnd: " + stringBuilder.toString());

            try {
                new SuTask(stringBuilder.toString().getBytes("ASCII")).execute();

            } catch (UnsupportedEncodingException e) {
                e.printStackTrace();
            }
        }
    };

    private class SuTask extends AsyncTask<Boolean, Void, Boolean> {
        private final byte[] mCommand;

        public SuTask(byte[] command) {
            super();
            this.mCommand = command;
        }

        @Override
        protected Boolean doInBackground(Boolean... booleans) {
            try {
                Process sh = Runtime.getRuntime().exec("su", null, null);
                OutputStream outputStream = sh.getOutputStream();
                outputStream.write(mCommand);
                outputStream.flush();
                outputStream.close();

                final NotificationManager notificationManager = (NotificationManager) mContext.getSystemService(NOTIFICATION_SERVICE);
                notificationManager.notify(RUNNING_NOTIFICATION_ID, createRunningNotification(mContext));

                sh.waitFor();
                return true;

            } catch (InterruptedException e) {
                e.printStackTrace();
                Toast.makeText(mContext, mContext.getString(R.string.error_start_recording), Toast.LENGTH_LONG).show();

            } catch (IOException e) {
                e.printStackTrace();
                Toast.makeText(mContext, mContext.getString(R.string.error_start_recording), Toast.LENGTH_LONG).show();
            }

            return false;
        }

        @Override
        protected void onPostExecute(Boolean bool) {
            super.onPostExecute(bool);
            if (bool) {
                final NotificationManager notificationManager = (NotificationManager) mContext.getSystemService(NOTIFICATION_SERVICE);
                notificationManager.cancel(RUNNING_NOTIFICATION_ID);

                File file = new File(Environment.getExternalStorageDirectory().toString() + "/recording.mp4");
                notificationManager.notify(FINISHED_NOTIFICATION_ID, createFinishedNotification(mContext, file));
            }
        }

        private Notification createRunningNotification(Context context) {
            Notification.Builder mBuilder = new Notification.Builder(context)
                    .setSmallIcon(android.R.drawable.stat_notify_sdcard)
                    .setContentTitle(context.getResources().getString(R.string.app_name))
                    .setContentText("Recording Running")
                    .setTicker("Recording Running")
                    .setPriority(Integer.MAX_VALUE)
                    .setOngoing(true);

            return mBuilder.build();
        }

        private Notification createFinishedNotification(Context context, File file) {
            Intent intent = new Intent();
            intent.setAction(Intent.ACTION_VIEW);
            intent.setDataAndType(Uri.fromFile(file), "video/mp4");

            PendingIntent pendingIntent = PendingIntent.getActivity(context, 0, intent,
                    PendingIntent.FLAG_UPDATE_CURRENT);

            Notification.Builder mBuilder = new Notification.Builder(context)
                    .setSmallIcon(android.R.drawable.stat_notify_sdcard)
                    .setContentTitle(context.getResources().getString(R.string.app_name))
                    .setContentText("Recording Finished")
                    .setTicker("Recording Finished")
                    .setContentIntent(pendingIntent)
                    .setOngoing(false)
                    .setAutoCancel(true);

            return mBuilder.build();
        }
    }
}

}

Answer 1

You can't get around the 3 minute limit. You can combine multiple 3 minute videos to create longer videos.

If you are willing to write your own screen recording capability then you will need to continuously take screenshots in a thread and convert all those images to a video. Hopefully there are some libraries out there you can utilize.

Another alternative is to start a screen recording app from you app but that will require that a screen recording app is also installed on the device.

Answer 2

You can create a script to do this. According to the ADB documentation, The way to record from commandline is by calling adb shell screenrecord [options] filename . Stick that in a script with a loop counter for the name, and you can get a nice list of videos. Pull them from the sdcard with adb pull /sdcard/*.

Example script taken xda-developers for Windows:

CALL :Record
SET /a var1=0
:record
SET /a var1+=1
SET /a name=%var1%
adb shell screenrecord /sdcard/recording%name%.mp4 --bit-rate 3145728
GOTO :record

Save that as "record.bat" and you're good to go :)