About

There are many possible ways to install the various dependencies of Vrecord on Linux. The main body of this documentation is oriented towards Ubuntu LTS, and has been tested to work on fresh installations of Ubuntu 24.04 LTS and 26.04 LTS.

Install non-homebrew core dependencies

1. If working on a fresh installation of Ubuntu, it is recommended to run sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get upgrade -y prior to installing vrecord to make sure that all packages are their latest versions.
2. Download and install the latest Linux version of 'Blackmagic Desktop Video' from the Blackmagic website
3. Install dependencies required for a successful build. These can be installed one-by-one from the list in this script, or (recommended) that script can be run remotely with the following command.

Vrecord dependency install command:

wget -O - https://raw.githubusercontent.com/amiaopensource/vrecord/refs/heads/linux-doc-updates/Release/linux-dependencies.sh | bash

Install Homebrew

4. Install Homebrew via the command on its homepage. As of writing, this is: /bin/bash -c "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/HEAD/install.sh)"

Important: After this command runs, Homebrew will print several more required commands that must be run to make brew functional. Run these commands! They should look something like:

echo >> /home/your-user-name/.bashrc
echo 'eval "$(/home/linuxbrew/.linuxbrew/bin/brew shellenv bash)"' >> /home/your-user-name/.bashrc
eval "$(/home/linuxbrew/.linuxbrew/bin/brew shellenv bash)"

For changes to take effect, either run reset or open a new terminal window.

5. Add the AMIA Open Source and MediaArea taps for Homebrew with: brew tap amiaopensource/amiaos && brew tap mediaarea/mediaarea

Install vrecord

6. You now should be able to install vrecord by running: brew install vrecord

Install optional dependencies

If DV functionality is desired, download and install the DVRescue command line tools from the MediaArea website.

The FFmpeg DV device can also be used for some DV features; this requires ffmpeg-ma to be compiled with the IEC61883 device. This can be done with brew install ffmpeg-ma --with-iec61883 for a new installation or brew reinstall ffmpeg-ma --with-iec61883 if ffmpeg-ma is already installed.

Instructions/Tips for other Linux Distributions

Linux Mint

Installation on Linux Mint (20.1) it was necessary to run apt install libc6-dev texinfo for additional dependencies.

via RPM (tested on CentOS 7/8 and Fedora 31)

This method is maintained by Jonáš Svatoš at Národní filmový archiv and contains patches which modify Vrecord source to bypass some hardcoded Homebrew-specific variables. It also adds a nice menu entry.

Install RPM from COPR repository

Follow the instructions on https://copr.fedorainfracloud.org/coprs/lsde/vrecord/

Build the RPM yourself

$ git clone https://github.com/NFAcz/vrecord-rpm.git
$ spectool -g -R vrecord.spec
$ cp *.patch ~/rpmbuild/SOURCES/
$ rpmbuild -bb vrecord.spec