SimpleScreenRecorder is a Linux program that I’ve created to record programs and games. There were already a few programs that could do this, but I wasn’t 100% happy with any of them, so I created my own.

My original goal was to create a program that was just really simple to use, but as I was writing it I started adding more and more features, and the result is actually a pretty powerful program. It’s ‘simple’ in the sense that it’s easier to use than ffmpeg/avconv or VLC, because it has a straightforward user interface.

Features

• Graphical user interface (Qt-based).

• Faster than VLC and ffmpeg/avconv.

• 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).

• 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.

• Uses libav/ffmpeg libraries for encoding, so it supports many different codecs and file formats (adding more is trivial).

• Can also do live streaming (experimental).

• Sensible default settings: no need to change anything if you don’t want to.

• Tooltips for almost everything: no need to read the documentation to find out what something does.