Very Complicated Screen Capture

An overcomplicated capture card/webcam monitoring and recording tool.

• Download
• Source code

Recently, I needed a thing to take a look at the video feed from my newly-purchased capture card. And this is the end result!

I don’t actually think anyone needs this but hey it somewhat works! I don’t have everything I want implemented yet.

WHAT WORKS:

• Viewing capture card output
• Copying screenshots to clipboard

PLANNED BUT NOT WORKING YET:

• Capturing to video files
• Saving screenshots to disk
• Settings persistence

I’d like to do something like Steam Background Recording wrt having a replay buffer that you can just record the last 30 seconds or something, but I may need to completely rework the program to do that. Still.

System requirements & dependencies

• Linux with Python >=3.10
• Windows 10 or newer with Python >=3.10
  • !! Windows 10 will be dropped in Qt soonish, and when that happens the program may no longer work !!
  • !! Python 3.10 does work on Windows 8. I don’t think Qt 6 does though. Why are you using Windows 8. Stop that. !!

Downloading

AGAIN: THIS SOFTWARE IS IN AN ALPHA STAGE.

Currently, the only way to run VCSC is to run it from source or from PyPI.

• PyPI
• Source code (shinonome.rocks; canon)
• Source code (GitHub; mirror)

On Linux, installation of the following packages system-wide is strongly recommended:

• PySide6
  • Fedora: python3-pyside6
  • Ubuntu: python3-qtpy
  • Arch Linux: pyside6
  • !! This will install Qt system-wide as well !!

You should then install the vcsc package using pip, pipx, or similar. Please DO NOT USE PIP if your system warns you about breaking system packages.

# Using pip
pip install vcsc

# Using pipx (reccommended if available)
pipx install vcsc --system-site-packages # <-- Allows it to integrate with your system's Qt styles btw

You should then be able to run it using the vcsc command or python3 -m vcsc. If you get something like below, you’re winning!

PS C:\Users\Bye> vcsc
Very Complicated Screen Capture 1.0.0a1
(c) https://byespace.net
Provided under the zlib license.

Launching with arguments: ['C:\\Users\\Bye\\AppData\\Roaming\\Python\\Python314\\Scripts\\vcsc']

Using   PySide  6.11.1
        Qt      6.11.1
PySide6 path: C:\Users\Bye\AppData\Roaming\Python\Python314\site-packages\PySide6\__init__.py

I’m hoping to make it more usable on macOS and Windows at some point, and have it integrate with the system’s app list on Linux (but it’s haaaaaaard)