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Kazam

Kazam is a simple screen recording program that will capture the content of your screen and record a video file that can be played by any video player that supports VP8/WebM video format. Optionally you can record sound from any sound input device that is supported and visible by PulseAudio.

Latest version

Kazam is always available from Launchpad.

Trying it out without installing

git clone https://github.com/niknah/kazam
cd kazam
pip3 install Xlib Pycairo PyGObject
bash bin/run_local_dev.sh

If you're using debian 12, Ubuntu 23 or higher, you have the install the equivalent packages with sudo apt install python3-xlib python-gi-dev python3-cairo-dev gir1.2-keybinder3.0 gir1.2-gudev-1.0.

Installation - stable release

If you are using Ubuntu then stable version (1.4.x) is available from universe repository. You can find it in Ubuntu Software Center or install it from the terminal with the following command:

$ sudo apt-get install kazam

For other Ubuntu based distributions the best way to install Kazam is to add a PPA repository and then use apt-get command or Software Center.

$ sudo add-apt-repository ppa:kazam-team/stable-series
$ sudo apt-get update
$ sudo apt-get install kazam

For distribution independent installation you will have to get the latest tarball release from Launchpad: Click this link and download the last version. Unpack it and then run setup:

$ tar -xzf kazam_1.4.4.tar.gz
$ cd kazam-1.4.4

Run installation as root user, or use sudo:

# python3 setup.py install

Installation - unstable version

Installing current unstable build from a PPA can be done by adding unstable series PPA.

$ sudo add-apt-repository ppa:kazam-team/unstable-series
$ sudo apt-get update
$ sudo apt-get install kazam

Installation - development version

If you want bleeding edge, development version then you will have to get source code from Launchpad by running the following command:

$ bzr branch lp:kazam

Then you need to run setup.py to build and install Kazam:

$ cd kazam
# python3 setup.py install

You will have to run setup as root user or use sudo. Default installation path is /usr/local.

Running Kazam

If you want to run Kazam from the source tree, there are a few limitations that you have to take into account. Every icon has to be taken from currently installed icon theme. Toolbars will not show any icons and you will not see Unity AppIndicator. To run Kazam simply execute the following commands in the source tree:

$ cd bin
$ ./kazam

If you already have Kazam installed then Kazam icons will be displayed properly.

Keyboard shortcuts

  • SUPER-CTRL-Q - Quit
  • SUPER-CTRL-W - Show/Hide main window
  • SUPER-CTRL-R - Start Recording
  • SUPER-CTRL-F - Finish Recording

Keyboard shortcuts will work on Precise Pangolin only if you installed Kazam 1.4.x from the PPA, keybinder 3.0 is a dependency and will be installed automatically.

For Ubuntu 12.10 and newer keyboard binder is available in the universe repositories and there is no need to use PPA to get keybinder installed.

Recording Tips

Always do a sound check. Especially if you are recording a live commentary with background sound. I got the best results when I used earphones to listen to the audio while recording. This way your mic will not pick up any audio coming from speakers.

If you really want loss-less quality, then you will have to record in RAW format. This is possible, but without an SSD with a lot of free space your results will be terrible. 1920x1080 at 15 frames per second will need around 45 MB of disk space per second. Most people will want to record at 20 or 25 frames per second. Most disk will not handle that and your system will start to crawl.

Your next best bet is HUFFYUV format, which is a little bit friendlier on disk bandwidth with 28 MB per second at 15 frames per second. The problem? Not many video editors and players can handle HUFFYUV, let alone video sharing services.

Known Issues

  • Trouble with recording audio from certain Monitor sources. I noticed this with Logitech G110 USB Keyboard that can play audio. Pulse Audio will see two devices: USP PnP Stereo Device and 'Monitor of USB PnP Stereo Device'. When recording from the monitor, volume controls for both devices will affect the volume in the final recording.

  • I have no idea where to put Mute/Unmute button, so right now every audio source you select is automatically unmuted.

  • It was reported that sound is disappearing after couple of minutes into the recording. I wasn't able to reproduce this bug and any more info is appreciated. See #933835 but for more details.

  • Two memory leaks were noticed, one with VP8 encoder and one with Intel graphics cards. Still investigating if this is a driver, Xorg or GStreamer problem.

  • Non compositing window managers are not able to render transparent windows. Area selection and countdown timers will be affected by this. Mint users can turn on window compositing in Desktop Settings.

  • When taking a screenshot of a preselected window with window decorations you have to make sure that your window is not covered by other windows.

  • *If the Mouse/keyboard actions do not appear, use screenkey. Example: screenkey --opacity 0.3 -M -g 500x500 --position=fixed

Debugging & reporting problems

If you encounter a bug or any kind of unexpected behavior please try to reproduce it while you run Kazam from standard terminal with GST_DEBUG=7 kazam --debug. Use Launchpad to report bugs and include generated output.