API's for Android 4.4 screen recording?

Question

One of the features of Android 4.4 (Kit Kat) is that it provides a way for developers to capture an MP4 video of the screen using adb shell screenrecord. Does Andr

Answer 1

Well, AFAIK, i don't see an API support equivalent to capturing what's going on the screen.

Answer 2

The screenrecord utility uses private APIs, so you can't do exactly what it does.

The way it works is to create a virtual display, route the virtual display to a video encoder, and then save the output to a file. You can do essentially the same thing, but because you're not running as the "shell" user you'd only be able to see the layers you created. The relevant APIs are designed around creating a Presentation, which may not be exactly what you want.

See the source code for a CTS test with a trivial example (just uses an ImageView).

Of course, if you happen to be a GLES application, you can just record the output directly (see e.g. EncodeAndMuxTest and the "Record GL app" activity in Grafika).