This project offers a screencast recorder that outputs avi files and a screenshot tool that saves png files. It opens a red frame that can be freely placed anywhere on the Desktop and resized and defines the area that is going to reccorded.
It started out as a training exercise to get familiar with the Java Media Framework and while I was at it I wanted to find out if one could make the central feature of any such software with java: the ui for choosing a viewport on the desktop. I know there are many more solutions (maybe better ones too) for doing this - I for example use avconv:
avconv -f x11grab -show_region 1 -follow_mouse 100 -r 10\\
-s 960x540 -i :0.0+10,200 -acodec pcm_s16le\\
-qscale 0 -vcodec libx264 /tmp/aviator_scale.mp4
But as I said - it offered the opportunity to learn something and i seldom say no when it happens...
You can build it by issuing
mvn compile package
and then starting the resulting monolithic jar file by issuing
$JAVA_HOME/bin/java -jar target/screenrecorder-<version>-jar-with-dependencies.jar
Alternatively one could just start the app using maven by issuing
mvn compile exec:java