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Looking for video recorder applications in Ubuntu that can:

  • record videos from webcam.
  • can save for example last 15 minutes so I can review that recorded video; I don't want it to record all the time (hard disk will get full); only 15 minutes is enough.
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3 Answers 3

32

You may use Cheese

It ships with Ubuntu by default.

If you don't see in your installed software list, you may install this from Ubuntu Software Center.

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  • 4
    I find cheese much simpler and friendly to operate than super-sophisticated and UX challenged VLC. It is just simple when you are less picky about formats and configurations.
    – matanox
    Jul 15, 2020 at 7:30
  • I agree that Cheese is the simplest to use. I've tried a few others, and no matter what I tried to do, the volume level of the audio playback was too low. Then I tried Cheese, and it just works 'out of the box'.
    – laur34
    Apr 25, 2021 at 17:20
  • 7
    Cheese looks great. Unfortunately it crashes when recording a video on my system. Jul 12, 2021 at 18:09
  • And for me the recording starts very laggy, and in VLC the time slider jumps immediately to minute 13. Maybe the beginning of the file is corrupted. #justusualshinyandsupereasytouselinuxsoftwarethings Sep 7, 2023 at 16:05
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You can use vlc (sudo apt-get install vlc -y).

  1. Open vlc, then press Ctrl+R
  2. choose [capture device] and select your webcam
  3. Press [Convert/Save]
  4. Choose where to save the file and hit [start].
  5. When you are done press ■
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  • yes that'a it! but I should choose "Play" :)
    – Deniz
    Aug 15, 2015 at 15:22
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    What would "v4l2://" showing as the "source" during that dialog flow in VLC mean?
    – matanox
    Jul 14, 2020 at 16:32
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    @matanster v4l2 is short for video for linux v2, it's basically just an API for accessing video devices in linux Jul 14, 2020 at 21:21
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    Is it possible to watch the webcam image as VLC records? Dec 25, 2020 at 22:38
  • 1
    VLC settings for recording looks very incomprehensible and confusing Mar 28, 2022 at 8:37
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Webcamoid worked for me easily. sudo apt-get install webcamoid, click record. (It worked fine with 3gp encapsulating H264, mpeg didn't work.)

I also tried cheese, which couldn't detect my webcam, and VLC, which detected my webcam under "Capture Devices" and sometimes under /dev/video*, but which I couldn't get to actually record anything (could be a technical or a UX problem).

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  • didnt work well for me
    – Uri
    Mar 21, 2023 at 12:51
  • Installed the apt version. As the default mp4/avi codec options didn't work I kept trying to find a working config. Some produced 0 byte files, some crashed Webcamoid, some only recorded video, no sound. Changed to the snap version. No config seemed to work, it produced corrupted files. After this, and trying all other answers, I was concluding Linux is not yet ready to record videos without expert knowledge in 2023. Then accidentally I found a working combo. So thank you! Sep 7, 2023 at 16:39

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