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I have a dual-head monitor setup under Windows 7, and I want to capture the desktop in VLC media player. But the second screen is preferred. How do I do that?

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You need to define an offset for the capture.

My screens have a horizontal resolution of 1920px. So to record my 2nd screen (located to the right of my primary screen), I add :screen-left=1920 to the "Edit Options" box. Make sure you check the "Show more options" on the "Open media" dialogue box to see the option.

You can also record just a subset of your screen or monitors located above or below your main screen, etc. VLC really is amazing.

VLC Capture Settings

Check out the VLC Command Line Options for all the available flags you can pass in:

Screen Input
      --screen-fps=<float>       Frame rate
          Desired frame rate for the capture.
      --screen-top=<integer [-2147483648 .. 2147483647]>
                                 Subscreen top left corner
          Top coordinate of the subscreen top left corner.
      --screen-left=<integer [-2147483648 .. 2147483647]>
                                 Subscreen top left corner
          Left coordinate of the subscreen top left corner.
      --screen-width=<integer [-2147483648 .. 2147483647]>
                                 Subscreen width
          Subscreen width
      --screen-height=<integer [-2147483648 .. 2147483647]>
                                 Subscreen height
          Subscreen height
      --screen-follow-mouse, --no-screen-follow-mouse
                                 Follow the mouse (default disabled)
          Follow the mouse when capturing a subscreen. (default disabled)
      --screen-mouse-image=<string>
                                 Mouse pointer image
          If specified, will use the image to draw the mouse pointer on the
          capture.
      --screen-fragment-size=<integer [-2147483648 .. 2147483647]>
                                 Capture fragment size
          Optimize the capture by fragmenting the screen in chunks of
          predefined height (16 might be a good value, and 0 means disabled).

Source: https://wiki.videolan.org/VLC_command-line_help

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  • Is this answer applicable for Ubuntu also? I have tried both :screen-width=1920 & screen-left=1920 but it does not work
    – Scott Anderson
    Nov 9, 2020 at 8:41
  • @ScottAnderson, check the resolution of your monitor on the left. For example, mine is 2048x1152. So to record only the right monitor, I use :screen-left=2048 which means, recording starts from 2049 on, and skips/ignore all of the left screen.
    – VISQL
    Dec 1, 2020 at 16:51
  • 'Display settings' labels my primary screen (Make this my main screen checked) as 2. When I record with :screen-left=1920 it records screen 1 (which is actually on the right). So :screen-left in VLC terms means the logical screen 1 which is not always the left or primary screen
    – gregg
    Aug 8, 2023 at 14:01

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