A Simple Screen Recorder for Ubuntu: Kazam

Screen recording is a great way to reach your audience (especially if you're ugly like me and don't wanna share your "face" :D). For instance, let's say that I wanted to show-off the new features in the upcoming Ubuntu 11.10. Then rather than writing a painfully long article, I can create a simple screen-record of my entire desktop which would explain a lot, easily.

Although if you use Ubuntu, then yet it doesn't come with a one pre-installed (it probably never will since screen recorder is not something that not everyone will use) but I'm pretty sure there are a lot you can find.

But if you've been looking for a very simple screen recorder that does nothing else (you know, without advanced video editing, cropping, etc) then Kazam is an excellent little tool.

Main features...

*. It's written in the GTK+ tool kit and uses the ffmpeg multimedia library for the recordings.

*. You can record both video (from your Computer screen of course) + an audio channel if you wanna add a voice as well.

*. Once you push the "Record" button it'll start to record whatever is on your desktop screen and you can use it's icon that runs in the notification area to Pause or Stop the recording.

*. As said, it doesn't have a video editing function (other than a basic one, more below) but since Ubuntu come with a pretty good one called Pitivi, Kazam will ask you to whether you wanna edit the video using Pitivity or just save it to disk.

You can directly open the recorded video in PiTiVi...

*. Kazam also has a YouTube video uploader (including a basic editor) which you can use to easily upload your content to YouTube and VideoBin services.

*. Saves the recorded multimedia file in .MKV container format.

You can install Kazam in Ubuntu 11.04 Natty Narwhal, 10.10 and 10.04 by using the daily unstable PPA channel (the stable channels doesn't have packages for Ubuntu 11.04) + 11.10 is not yet added. Open your terminal window and enter the below commands.

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:and471/kazam-daily-builds

sudo apt-get update

sudo apt-get install kazam

So if you're searching for an easy to use, simple screen recorder for Ubuntu, then give a try to Kazam, it's pretty darn good!.

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Novacut Pro - Upcoming OpenSource, Professional Video Editor for GNU/Linux (created by "Artists for Artists")

Although GNU/Linux has as an excellent multimedia player (despite the whole "proprietary" issues :) ) support at the moment but when it comes to creating or editing videos in general, in a professional way... well, it kinda sucks :/. Although we do have excellent ones such as OpenShot for instance.

But it's not just having a lot of features or being simple ... it's about efficiency ... trying to find a balance between simplicity and usefulness. This seems to be the "philosophy" that the Novacut-Pro video editing suite developers believe in and they're building the editor from scratch, it seems.

In the Ubuntu Wiki page which "describes" how the UX should be and stuff ;-) ... the developers say....

"The singular goal of Novacut is to help artists become profitable... without giving up control, ownership, or compromising their creative vision"...

Listening to what artists need rather than trying to figure out everything by themselves which could lead to a disaster which has been proven again and again and again ...

"The last year we've spent a lot of time talking to artists, tuning our priorities. This UX design makes the conversation formal and publicly documented. But the conversation is just starting... we need feedback from many more artists, about many more details... always. Truly great creative tools cannot be designed in secret. They must be designed in open dialog with creators...

Because there is no film cost and HDSLR cameras are inexpensive, the biggest production cost is truly people's time, and we're quite confident Novacut will allow these artists to tell the same story, with the same impeccable production quality, in less time."

Interesting stuff isn't it :). Now, this is a real professional video editor that's aimed at the professionals (well, that rules me out :P). Novacut-Pro will support handful of equipments such as ...

*. It's optimized for Canon HDSLR cameras. Such as the 5D Mark II, 7D, 1D Mark IV, 60D, T2i, and T3i.

*. For audio syncing you'll have to use Sennheiser MKE 400 or Rode VideoMic, etc. But they said that they'll try to support those "usual" camera-mic-in as well. But don't keep your hopes high though.

*. Other professional digital audio recording devices such as Zoom H4n will be supported.

They use the Gstreamer multimedia framework as the application "engine" (rendering/editing videos). The application will also comes with Cloud computing support. Although it's not clear whether we'll be able to run the app itself in the cloud or not at the moment but they certainly are in favor of the Ubuntu One service nonetheless. The file distribution or sharing can be done pretty easily via the DML (distributed media library) framework (supports both local and Cloud storage) which is implemented as a Launchpad project at the moment. So, it's apparent that they're certainly in favor of the Ubuntu Linux distribution specifically.

It's not released yet but you can get upto-date information from this kickstartpage if interested and I highly recommend that you watch the below introduction video which explains a lot about this amazing (well, we'll see about that :D), upcoming professional video editor for GNU/Linux!. Oh yeah... it's Opensource and FREE too!.

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Install LiVES in Ubuntu 11.04 Natty Narwhal (a Video Editing System for GNU/Linux)

LiVES is an advanced video editing system written in GTK+ toolkit designed to be used with GNU/Linux operating system (aimed at Gnome desktop, actually). From loading different types of video files to its GUI to editing them using a lot of effects, it is a small (needs about 23-24MB of downloading size) yet a powerful video editing application nonetheless.

It's a very flexible utility and can be controlled directly (other than in your PC of course) through a video sever as well. It uses the MPlayer (my favorite :D) as the multimedia decoding engine, although not always but I think as a result it must help to speed up things a bit since MPlayer rely on the FFMPEG libraries which are well known for their performance when comparing with other multimedia frameworks such as Gstreamer and Phonon (may not always be true, anyway). 

Lets have a look at few of the main features of LiVES Video Editor...

*. Any video format supported by MPlayer, you can use in LiVES (means a LOT :D).

*. Also supports editing Ogg-Vorbis and Theora (GNU licensed competing multimedia codecs).

*. Forward/Reverse playback.

It comes with a lots of features that can be a bit confusing if you aren't much of a video editing expert, like me :)...

*. Edit/Cut/Paste/Copy clips.

*. Record and save individual clips or frames.

*. Backup files in losseless formats.

*. Remotely stored file editing support.

*. It's very flexible and by using the the plugins API (written using C/C++), you can expand its features as well.

*. According to the LiVES features page, it now supports over 50 multimedia file types such as - mjpeg, mpeg4, mpeg1/2, h264, VCD, SVCD, DVD, ogg/mp4 ogm, Matroska mkv, dv, swf, Ogg Theora, Dirac, MNG, Snow, xvid, and even animated GIF and even PDF!.

*. Rotating/changing bit-rate, cropping, resizing and trimming videos with ease.

*. De-interlacing (using MPlayer's built in powerful features) and subtitle extracting/embedding.

*. Supports audio formats such as mp3, vorbis, mod, it, xm and wav files.

*. Extracting audio file from a video.

*. Automatic adjusting of audio speed when rendering.

*. Drag and drop support.

*. Live previews.

*. Lots of built in video effects such as - zooming, color cycling, panning, fade-in/fade-out frames and lots of real-time effects... are just a very few of its main features to mention.

If you use Ubuntu 11.04 Natty Narwhal (should work in 10.04 or 10.10) you can install LiVES Video Editor by entering the below command in your Terminal.

sudo apt-get install lives

That should do it. Enjoy!.

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How To Install the PiTiVi Video Editor in Ubuntu 11.04 Natty Narwhal (stable PPA)?

Video Editing in GNU/Linux has never been easy. Although not just me but anyone who's got a decent knowledge (like me) would agree to this, I think :). I don't know if the reason for this is because there are less "business" opportunities (is it?, really?) in the GNU world but this could well easily be due to the fact that almost all the widely used audio/video codecs these days are proprietary.

Since most of the GNU/Linux developers aren't that forgiving when it comes to dealing with proprietary software in general (I'm also a bit like that, but I love my movies too :P) because they're fighting to eliminate the "mindsets/believe system" behind software proprietary, or at least that's what we're told... so by creating a magnificent Video editor, can easily end up being a "helping hand" for the expansion of the proprietary codecs.

Anyhow, these days we're seeing a lot of new projects + the totally "free" multimedia codecs seems to be gaining some momentum such as Vorbis or Theora, etc, GNU/Linux will most definitely have a bright future concerning multimedia "without a doubt" :/.

In that sense, if you're searching for an excellent video editor for your PC/Laptop then PiTiVi is a pretty good one. Although in comparison with some other apps such as Openshot, etc PiTiVi does not have a lot of options yet it looks promising.

Main features...

*. Import/Export files.

*. Trim/Crop/Cut/Ripple, etc your video files with ease.

*. It uses the Gstreamer multimedia framework.

*. With PiTiVi you can also separately edit the audio file within the container format as well (Again, cut/paste/trim, volume settings, etc).

*. Zooming/Change playback speeds.

*. Mouse wheel integration for ease of control.

*. Generate video thumbnails (well it should!).

*. Although it's written in non vicious Python :P, but integrates with GTK written apps as well.

*. Well written user manual.

*. Save files in predefined settings (resolution/codec, etc).

*. Easy to use GUI... are just a few to mention.

As said this uses the Gstreamer, so any file that Gstreamer support you can import into PiTiVi. I'm not quite sure about other distributions but with Ubuntu you actually get the PiTiVi installed by default.

But whenever the developers release new features (lets say, while they're at "stable/beta" stages) then by installing it using the stable PPA you can get a taste of those features which is impossible with the official versions.

If interested, you can install PiTiVi 0.14.0 (the latest stable release) in Ubuntu 11.04 Natty Narwhal by using the below command.

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:pitivi/stable
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install pitivi

For 10.10 and 10.04 users, please use the below command instead.

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:gstreamer-developers/ppa
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install pitivi

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Videoporama - A Fully Featured Video/Image Slide Show Creator for GNU/Linux!

Videoporama is a very impressive video and image slide-show creator that is written in Qt. Although it's basically seems like a front-end since it uses the excellent MPlayer for video play-back, ffmpeg and MjpegTools for dealing with various types of audio and video formats... the rest assured, if you want something that lets you create hassle free video shows or image slides... then Videoporama is an elegant app.

This actually is a cross-platform Qt written application thus you can use it in Microsoft Windows as well.

Main features...

*. Comes preloaded with a lot of transition effects.

*. Add text to your images (overlays, etc).

*. If your does not have an audio file, then you can manually add one too!.

*. Pre-built presets for creating videos for iPhone/iPod or manual output settings.

*. Supports saving videos in mpg, avi, mp4 and webm + if you want you can save the recorded videos in full HD resolutions as well.

These are few of its main features to mention and if you want to install it in Ubuntu 10.10, then open your Terminal and enter the below command.

sudo apt-get install videoporama

If you use Ubuntu 11.04 Natty Nalwhal, then please use the this .deb package instead. 

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