Webcam video recorder

Question

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.

https://askubuntu.com/questions/161940/capturing-video-from-webcam-and-saving-to-a-file — lxx, Jul 23 '18 at 06:18
more ways: https://askubuntu.com/questions/186003/anything-better-than-cheese-for-video-capture — stason, Aug 29 '18 at 23:49

score 30 · Answer 1 · answered Nov 22 '19 at 09:41

30

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.

answered Nov 22 '19 at 09:41

Nahid

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3

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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. – matanster Jul 15 '20 at 07:30
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 '21 at 17:20
6

Cheese looks great. Unfortunately it crashes when recording a video on my system. – Silicomancer Jul 12 '21 at 18:09

score 25 · Accepted Answer · answered Aug 15 '15 at 13:34

25

You can use vlc (sudo apt-get install vlc -y).

Open vlc, then press Ctrl+R
choose [capture device] and select your webcam
Press [Convert/Save]
Choose where to save the file and hit [start].
When you are done press ■

answered Aug 15 '15 at 13:34

fallingcats

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yes that'a it! but I should choose "Play" :) – Deniz Aug 15 '15 at 15:22
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What would "v4l2://" showing as the "source" during that dialog flow in VLC mean? – matanster Jul 14 '20 at 16:32
1

@matanster v4l2 is short for video for linux v2, it's basically just an API for accessing video devices in linux – fallingcats Jul 14 '20 at 21:21
Is it the only responsible value to keep on that field? – matanster Jul 19 '20 at 06:32
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Is it possible to watch the webcam image as VLC records? – Guilherme Garnier Dec 25 '20 at 22:38
It works, but quality needs to be configured and how to do so is not super intuitive. My videos look grainy by default, whereas Cheese worked out of the box. – Guybrush Threepwood Apr 13 '21 at 10:21
1

VLC settings for recording looks very incomprehensible and confusing – Joe Schraube Mar 28 '22 at 08:37

score 0 · Answer 3 · answered Dec 25 '22 at 03:02

0

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).

answered Dec 25 '22 at 03:02

mfse

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didnt work well for me – Uri Mar 21 '23 at 12:51

Webcam video recorder

3 Answers3

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