Definitions

For Krut to create a recording, you need to define the area to grab. Window and full-screen settings do not exist, and Krut does not use webcams, should one be present on the system. To define the recording area, you click on the iconized mouse pointer to the right of the Snap button in the small control window, and with a Ctrl+Left-click, drag the mouse pointer from the upper left to the lower right corner of the target area. The target area turns a semi-transparent green. After defining the target, the recording is started in the usual way. If you want a preview (e.g., to check the target area), check the Menu | Preview Window option.

After starting a recording, Krut records until the Stop button in the control window is pressed. Then, a small window displays the encoding, which is a pleasingly quick experience. Krut creates a MOV file that contains both audio and video data in the defined storage directory. Separately, the software stores a sound file in WAV format. Krut does not allow you to change file formats.

Practical Problems

In practice, defining the recording area turns out to be unreliable in Krut: The software failed to integrate the panel strips into the image in various desktop environments, so full-screen recording was not possible. The window recordings only delivered the desired results after defining the recording area multiple times. The video and audio recordings produced were of a good quality, though, and synchronized correctly.

Encoding was quick, but the file sizes in the test were significantly larger, even for a medium encoding quality, than those produced by the other candidates.

Conclusions

The saying "where there is light, there is also shadow" also applies to screencast programs, which meet vastly different requirements in Linux. Kazam and recordMyDesktop are suitable for occasional work, although recordMyDesktop has an outdated operating concept that needs some getting used to. Kazam showed weaknesses in audio recording in the test.

SimpleScreenRecorder is the best choice for professional users. Thanks to the ability to create profiles, this software in particular facilitates the process of creating training videos for which you want to use the same parameters.

If you are looking for a very solid all-around application with a modern interface and intuitive operation, however, Vokoscreen stands out from the test field. You can see that the developers carefully considered which functions are important for professional screencasts and which are not. The software interface is accordingly uncluttered, but without having to compromise on the program's feature set.

Krut is for those who need portable, platform-independent screencast software. This program has a learning curve, and the recording target areas did not always work in the lab.