SimpleScreenRecorder: Powerful Screen Recording Software For Linux

SimpleScreenRecorder is a Qt screen recorder for Linux which, despite its name, comes with more features than other similar tools. The application is very easy to use and the default settings should be enough for most cases, so usually you won't need to change any settings.

Using it, you can record the entire screen (with multi-monitor support), record a fixed rectangle, follow the cursor or record OpenGL applications (can be used to record games).

Launching the application, you'll notice a simple user interface that lets you select the video input, choose if you want to record the cursor or if you want to record the microphone and set the frame rate:

Clicking "Continue", you can select the container for your screencast (MP4, Matroska, WebM, OGG or "Other", which you can use to select any container supported by Libav), file name, video codec (H.264, VP8, Theora or, just like the container, select "Other" which allows you to use any codec supported by Libav), set the video quality or preset:

In the next screen, you can start the recording, enable recording hotkeys so you can pause / resume the recording via a keyboard shortcut and more:

SimpleScreenRecorder features:

• records the entire screen or part of it, or records OpenGL applications directly (similar to Fraps on Windows);
• synchronizes audio and video properly (a common issue with VLC and ffmpeg/avconv);
• faster than VLC and ffmpeg/avconv;
• reduces the video frame rate if your computer is too slow (rather than using up all your RAM like VLC does);
• fully multithreaded: small delays in any of the components will never block the other components, resulting is smoother video and better performance on computers with multiple processors;
• pause and resume recording at any time (either by clicking a button or by pressing a hotkey);
• shows statistics during recording (file size, bit rate, total recording time, actual frame rate, ...);
• can show a preview during recording, so you don't waste time recording something only to figure out afterwards that some setting was wrong;
• more.

Please note that OpenGL support is currently experimental and it might be buggy for now or it may not even work at all for you. Furthermore, the application tries to capture the frames before they are displayed on the screen and this might be considered a hack in some games and you might be banned so check if you're allowed to record a game before using this feature.

Below you can watch a quick video I've recorded using SimpleScreenRecorder in Ubuntu 13.04:

(direct video link)

Install SimpleScreenRecorder

Ubuntu users can install SimpleScreenRecorder by using its official PPA. To add the PPA and install the application, use the following commands:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:maarten-baert/simplescreenrecorder
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install simplescreenrecorder

Ubuntu 64bit: if you want to record 32bit games, make sure you also install simplescreenrecorder-lib:i386:

sudo apt-get install simplescreenrecorder-lib:i386

Arch Linux users can install SimpleScreenRecorder via AUR (64bit: just like in Ubuntu, make sure you also install the 32bit libs if you plan on recording 32bit OpenGL applications.

For other Linux distributions, get the source code via GitHub.