Have you ever watched a sports match on TV and seen the slow-motion replay right after a big moment? That's exactly what Video Replay does — but for you, live, while you're training.
Here's how it works in plain English:
A camera plugged into your computer watches you as you practise.
The app keeps everything you do in a rolling buffer.
The screen shows you what you looked like a few seconds ago — so you can study your technique while you're still in the zone.
You don't need to stop, rewind, or wait. One panel can show what you're doing right now. Another can show what you did ten seconds ago. You can have four panels showing four different delays at once!
🎯 Perfect for dart players, cricket batters, golfers, gymnasts, dancers, physio and rehab — any sport where technique matters!
💡 Think of it like this: Imagine a screen right next to you, showing exactly what you did ten seconds ago. Nobody has to hold it, and nobody has to film you.
2 Cool Features at a Glance
⏱️
Up to 60 seconds delay
Each panel has its own delay, set with a slider.
🔲
Seven screen layouts
One panel up to a four-panel grid, changed mid-session.
🎥
Works with any USB camera
From a Raspberry Pi with a basic webcam to a desktop with a 4K camera.
🔀
Two cameras at once
Where your hardware and USB bandwidth allow it.
🔍
Zoom and pan
Up to 5×, then drag to frame exactly what matters.
🎬
Record with sound
No time limit. Your voice is recorded along with the video.
🗂️
Straight into ~/Videos
Recordings land in ~/Videos/Video Replay with your other videos.
🏷️
Titled and timed
Session details at the start, duration at the end.
📡
Live share to OBS
Stream the replay to another computer over your network.
🏆
Referral leaderboard
Share the app, climb the board, challenge your club.
3 Quick Start — Your First Replay in 3 Steps
1
Choose your viewClick 1 Screen on the opening screen. You can change to two, three or four panels later without stopping anything.
2
Plug in a camera and point it at yourselfVideo Replay opens on whichever USB camera it finds — or the one you used last. Stand back until you fill the frame.
3
Set your delay and goDrag the slider at the bottom of the panel to about 5 seconds. Do your movement, then look up. There you are.
💡 How much delay? Three to six seconds suits most movements — long enough to finish the rep and look up, short enough that you still remember how it felt.
4 The Screen — Labelled
Here's the two-panel view. Every panel carries its own controls, so they never have to agree with each other.
☰Exit1234 REC
LIVE
📷 Cam 1↻ 0°
− 1.00× +⌂
5.0s
📷 Cam 1↻ 0°
− 1.00× +⌂
☰
Menu — capture quality, dual camera, Live Share, saved session details.
#
1 2 3 4 — how many panels. Change any time, mid-session, or press the matching number key.
●
REC — starts a recording (or press R). Becomes ■ STOP with a running timer while recording. It's small and up in the corner on purpose, so it never covers the footage you're watching or the shot you're framing.
E
Exit — back to the opening screen (or press Esc). Your session stops.
1
The badge — green LIVE, or amber showing that panel's delay. This appears in your recordings too.
2
📷 pick this panel's camera, ↻ rotate this panel.
3
Zoom row and delay slider — see the next sections.
5 Setting Your Delay
Drag the slider along the bottom of any panel with the mouse. It runs from live (0 seconds) all the way to 60 seconds, in half-second steps.
With more than one panel, give each a different delay. A common setup is one panel live and one at five seconds — you see what you're doing and what you just did, side by side.
💡 Set up once, forget it. Delays stay put when you change layout, so switching from one panel to four doesn't mean re-dragging every slider.
6 Zooming and Moving the Picture
Use − and + to zoom, up to 5×. Once you're past 1×, click and drag inside the panel to move the picture around and frame exactly the part that matters — your hands, your feet, your follow-through.
The ⌂ button puts zoom and position back to normal.
💡 Each panel zooms on its own. Keep one wide for the whole movement and zoom another right in on the detail you're working on.
7 Rotating a Panel
Click ↻ to turn that panel in 90° steps. A USB camera has no idea which way up it's sitting, so this is how you fix a sideways or upside-down picture — for example if you've clamped it to a stand on its side to get a bit more height, or a tripod mount has it rotated a quarter-turn.
8 Cameras — USB, One or Two
Video Replay talks to any camera your Linux distribution already recognises as a video device — USB webcams, dedicated USB cameras, and the cheap UVC cameras used on a Raspberry Pi. Plug one in before you start the app, or plug one in mid-session — it appears in the camera list within a couple of seconds.
✅ Whichever camera you used last is the one you get next time. If you're coaching from one position and reviewing from another, pick your cameras once and the app remembers the choice per panel.
Choosing a camera for a panel
Click 📷 on any panel to pick which connected camera it shows. Open the ☰ menu to see every camera Video Replay has found, along with the resolution it's probed for each.
Using two cameras at once
Give two panels different cameras and, where your hardware allows it, both stream at once — one from each side of the room, for example, or a wide shot and a close-up.
⚠ This depends on your specific hardware, not just the app. Two cameras sharing one USB controller — especially over USB 2.0, and especially with cheap cameras that over-declare how much bandwidth they need — can simply refuse to start together. Video Replay tests a combination for a couple of seconds before trusting it, and only offers dual camera where that test actually succeeds. Where it doesn't, picking a camera on one panel just changes which single camera every panel uses.
If you plan to run two cameras regularly: plug them into separate USB controllers or a good powered hub if your machine has more than one built in, and prefer cameras that support MJPEG. On a Raspberry Pi 4 in particular, treat two-camera setups as something to test on the day, not assume will work.
9 Choosing Your View
Layout
What it's good for
1 Screen
One panel, full window. Free forever.
2 Side by Side
Live next to a replay — the most useful pairing there is.
2 Stacked
Same two views, better for tall movements.
3 — 2 Above
Two smaller views over one wide one.
3 — 1 Above
One wide view over two smaller ones.
3 Across
Three equal columns — good on a wide monitor.
4 Screens
A 2×2 grid. The whole movement in one glance.
Change layout mid-session with the 1 2 3 4 buttons in the toolbar, or the matching number key. Nothing restarts and nothing is lost.
10 Recording a Session
1
Click ● RECTop right of the window (or press R). The session details form opens.
2
Fill in what you wantParticipant, coach, session type, a title and notes. All optional — but they're printed on the front of your video, so they're worth a few seconds. The app remembers them for next time.
3
Click Start RecordingThe button becomes ■ STOP with a running timer. The panel controls hide themselves so nothing gets nudged mid-session.
4
Click ■ STOP when you're doneYou'll see Saving… for a few seconds, then a big green tick: Successfully saved — to ~/Videos/Video Replay, with buttons for opening the folder or sharing the clip underneath.
💡 Why the short wait? The app keeps recording for about three seconds after you press stop, so the closing card with your session time is genuinely part of the video. Let it finish.
✅ No time limit. Record for as long as you like, on the free version or Pro.
11 What's In Your Recording
When
What you'll see
First 5 seconds
Your title card — participant, coach, session type, date, and any title or notes. It fades out on its own.
All the way through
Every panel with its delay badge, laid out exactly as it was on screen — so whoever watches knows which view is which.
Last 3 seconds
A full-screen closing card. The picture fades out and you get SESSION DURATION in big type, the title, and the same Player: and Coach: line as the opening card. The duration is the length of the whole clip, closing card and all — it matches what your file manager shows.
✅ The video is your replay panels — not your screen. No toolbar, no window chrome, no desktop notifications. The app cannot see any other window on your computer.
Your microphone is recorded too, so anything you or your coach say over the replay is on the clip.
12 Where Your Videos Are Saved
Straight into ~/Videos/Video Replay in your home folder, named by date and time. There's no separate gallery to publish to — it's a plain folder your file manager already shows.
Click 🎬 My recordings on the opening screen to open that folder at any time.
💡 A recordings page over your network. Turning on Live Share serves that same folder as a simple web page at your computer's address — open it on a phone or tablet on the same network and you can browse and download any clip without plugging anything in.
13 Sharing to Your Coach
Linux has no single built-in "share sheet" the way a phone does, so Video Replay gives you two ways to get a clip off this computer:
Way
What it does
Recordings page
With Live Share turned on, open the same address on a phone or tablet on the same network and download the clip straight from there — nothing to plug in.
Any file share
The clip is an ordinary file in ~/Videos/Video Replay. Attach it to an email, drop it in a Slack or Teams channel, copy it to a USB stick, or drag it into a cloud-synced folder like Dropbox or OneDrive if you use one.
💡 Nothing is uploaded automatically. Videos stay on this computer until you choose to send one.
14 Sharing the App with a Mate
On the opening screen there's an orange 📣 Share with a mate button. Click it and a short message with a link is copied to your clipboard, ready to paste into an email, a chat, or a team message.
Underneath it is your invite code, eight characters like WZ9Z-3WGP. It's generated on this computer the first time you open the app, it never changes, and it's added to the link you share so an install can be traced back to you. Anyone can also just type it in by hand.
💡 The code identifies your invites, not you. It isn't tied to your name, email or any account — it's a random string this computer made up.
If a mate invited you
Open their link and click the button — it copies your mate's code to your clipboard and takes you to the download page. The first time you launch Video Replay it asks Got an invite code? — click Paste code and it fills itself in. You're only asked once.
💡 No link, just a code? Type it into the same box. That's why the codes have no letters or numbers that look alike — no O and 0, no I and 1.
Your leaderboard alias
Under your code is ＋ Add leaderboard alias. An alias is the public name shown beside your referral count on the Video Replay leaderboard — it's how you challenge your mates and your club to out-share you. It's completely optional: skip it and you can still share your code, you just won't appear on the board. The leaderboard is shared across every Video Replay platform, so it's the same board whether your mates are on Windows, Android or Linux.
⚠️ An alias is published to the open internet, and that can't be undone. The leaderboard is a public web page. Anyone can read it, search engines will index it, and copies get cached, archived and screenshotted by services nobody controls. Taking your alias down later removes it from our page — it does not remove it from search results or archives.
So don't use your real full name, an email address, a phone number, your address, or your school or club. A nickname is the right kind of answer. The app blocks the obvious cases, but it can't tell that a name is your real one.
Once the leaderboard is live, an alias can only be changed once every six months. A leaderboard is only worth anything if the name at the top is the same person each time. The app shows you the date yours can next be changed.
🚫 Play fair. Referrals are for inviting real people who actually want the app. Faked installs, scripted or virtual-machine installs, buying or trading codes, spamming, or impersonating someone on the leaderboard is a breach of the referral rules — we can pull your alias, ban the account from the programme, and void any bonuses, prizes or rewards, earned or pending. The full rules are at videoreplay.com.au/linux/referral-rules.html.
The leaderboard itself
The board lives at videoreplay.com.au. The front page shows the Top 10 referrers — gold, silver and bronze at the head of it, referral counts, and who has moved most in the last seven days. Click through and you get the full table: every entrant, ranked.
On the full table
What it does
Search
Type any alias — yours, or a mate's — and the table narrows as you type.
This is me
Click it on your own row. Your row is highlighted and pinned to the top from then on, and a banner tells you your rank and how many referrals you are off the person above you.
★
Star a mate to follow them. Starred people stay pinned at the top of your table, so you can keep score against your own crew instead of scrolling past strangers.
★ My mates
Hides everyone except you and the people you've starred.
Sort
By rank, by total referrals, or by who's climbing fastest this week.
All of that is remembered on your own device, so it's exactly as you left it next time. There's no account and no sign-in — the site never learns who you are.
A referral counts when a real person who didn't already have the app installs it through your link or your code, because you recommended it. Rewards for the top of the board — plaques, promotion and the like — are at our discretion; the referral rules set out exactly how it works.
🚧 Not live yet. The leaderboard launches once it's live across all three Video Replay platforms. Until then an alias you set is saved on this computer only — nothing is sent anywhere and nothing is published. You can set one now and see exactly how it will work — and while the board is off you can change it as often as you like, so try it out. The six-month lock only starts once the board is live.
15 Live Share to OBS
Open the ☰ menu during a session and click 📡 Live Share. This computer starts serving the replay over your network, and gives you two things: a room code (three characters) and an address.
✅ Easiest way to get the address onto another computer. Video Replay shows a short address like 192.168.1.178:8080. Open just that in a browser on the other computer, enter the room code, and click Copy address. Paste it straight into OBS — no typing out the long version.
In OBS on the receiving computer:
1
Sources → + → Media SourceAdd a new one.
2
Untick “Local File”That's what lets you type an address instead of picking a file.
3
Paste the address into InputIt's already got your room code on the end.
4
Drag “Network Buffering” down to 0 MBDon't skip this. OBS ships with a 2 MB buffer, which is several seconds of delay before anything shows up — it's meant for streaming over the internet, not another machine sitting on the same network as you.
💡 Both machines must be on the same network. Wi-Fi or wired both work, as long as they can reach each other. If this computer is on a different network — a guest Wi-Fi, a VPN — the app will tell you.
⚠ Anyone on that network who has the room code can watch your camera. The code is only three characters, so on a shared club or gym network treat it like a door being unlocked: turn sharing off when you're done. Wrong codes are blocked after a few tries, and the code changes every time you start sharing.
💡 Sound. The stream is video only. Add your microphone in OBS as its own source — a Bluetooth mic near the player sounds far better than a laptop's built-in mic from across the court anyway.
What goes out is the same picture the recording gets — your panels and their delay badges, no toolbar and no notifications. Sharing and recording work at the same time.
💡 Firewall blocking it? Live Share listens on port 8080. If the other computer can't connect even though you're on the same network, check your firewall allows inbound TCP on 8080 — see Something Not Working?.
16 If Something Interrupts You
A camera unplugged mid-session freezes that panel on its last frame. Video Replay notices and reconnects it automatically the moment you plug it back in — you don't need to restart the session. If a recording is running while a camera is out, that panel simply has nothing new to show until it's back; re-plug quickly if you're mid-capture.
Closing a laptop lid suspends the whole machine — camera, encoder and everything else pauses along with it, the same way it would for any other running program. If you don't want that to happen mid-session, turn off automatic suspend on lid-close in your desktop's power settings for the duration.
✅ Closing the window won't cost you a recording. Pressing Esc or the window's close control during a recording stops it and stays on the saved screen, so the video and its sharing options are still right in front of you — it doesn't just vanish along with the window.
The screen stays awake for your whole session, and the recording's resolution stays fixed for its duration so your footage doesn't change shape halfway through.
17 Keyboard Shortcuts
Key
What it does
Esc
Back to the previous screen. During a recording, stops it and stays on the saved screen.
F11
Toggle fullscreen.
R
Start or stop recording.
1 – 4
Switch to that many panels.
Every shortcut has an on-screen button too — these are just faster if your hands are already on the keyboard.
18 Free and Pro
What you get
Free, forever
One panel, any delay from live to 60 seconds, unlimited recording length, recordings straight to ~/Videos/Video Replay. A genuinely useful tool on its own — not a demo.
Pro
2, 3 and 4-panel layouts each on their own delay, plus two cameras at once where your hardware allows it.
✅ Every install gets 7 days of full Pro access — no payment details, nothing to cancel. After that, Pro is a subscription: US$4.99 a month or US$49.99 a year, paid through Stripe. Both give you exactly the same thing; the yearly plan just works out cheaper. There's no lifetime option.
Buying and activating
Clicking Buy opens Stripe's secure checkout in your default browser. A licence key normally arrives by email within a minute or two — Video Replay checks for it automatically and fills it in for you, or you can paste it yourself under Menu → Licence.
Your key is locked to this computer, via a Machine ID the app derives from your system — not from anything that identifies you personally. Setting up on a second machine needs its own purchase, or a transfer arranged through support.
Cancel any time through the Stripe customer portal link in your receipt email, or by writing to support@webgecko.au. Cancelling stops the next renewal; you keep Pro until the period you already paid for runs out.
19 Your Privacy
No account beyond your licence, no analytics, no advertising — but unlike a purely offline app, Video Replay for Linux does talk to a server, because Pro is a subscription that has to be checked. Here's exactly what that involves:
Camera frames sit in a short rolling buffer on this computer and are thrown away when you leave the session. They are never uploaded anywhere.
Recordings are saved to ~/Videos/Video Replay and go nowhere unless you send them yourself.
The app contacts Web Gecko's licence server: when you buy, while it's waiting for your key to arrive, every time you launch the app, and once a day after that to make sure your subscription is still active. All it sends is a Machine ID — a code derived from this computer, not from you personally. If the server can't be reached, an already-licensed install keeps working; only an explicit "no longer valid" answer switches you back to Free.
Payment itself is handled entirely by Stripe. Web Gecko never sees your card details — only what Stripe tells us, such as your email and whether the payment succeeded. See Stripe's own privacy policy for what they collect.
Turning on Live Share opens a small server on your local network so a device with the room code can view the replay or browse your recordings. That traffic stays on your network and never reaches Web Gecko.
Your invite code is made up on this computer. It isn't built from your name, your email, or anything that identifies you personally.
⚠ One thing you can choose to make public. A leaderboard alias is the only piece of information this app will ever publish about you, and only if you deliberately set one. Everything else stays on this computer or, for licensing, between it and our server. The full policy is at videoreplay.com.au/linux/privacy.html.
20 Something Not Working?
Problem
What to do
Picture is sideways
Click ↻ on the panel. A webcam has no sense of "upright" — this fixes whatever angle it's mounted at.
"No cameras found"
Check the camera is plugged in and powered, and that your distribution sees it at all with v4l2-ctl --list-devices (install v4l-utils if that command is missing). If it lists but the app still doesn't see it, unplug and replug it, or try a different USB port.
Camera found but access denied
On some distributions your user needs to belong to the video group: run sudo usermod -aG video $USER, then log out and back in (a reboot also works). Camera permission is a one-time system setting, not something the app asks for each launch.
A panel froze after unplugging a camera
It should reconnect on its own once the camera is back. If one really is stuck, exit the session and start it again.
Picture is dark indoors
The camera is held at a steady 30 frames per second so fast movement stays sharp. Left alone it would trade frame rate for brightness — the wrong trade for reviewing technique.
Both cameras won't turn on together
Not every camera pairing can run at once, especially over USB 2.0. Where yours can't, choosing a camera on one panel switches the single camera for every panel instead. See Cameras — USB, One or Two.
Live Share address won't connect from another device
Confirm both devices are on the same network, and that your firewall allows inbound connections on port 8080 — on Ubuntu/Debian, sudo ufw allow 8080/tcp.
Fullscreen (F11) doesn't fill the screen properly
This can happen on some Wayland compositors' handling of fullscreen windows. If it misbehaves, log out and choose the "on Xorg" session at the login screen — Video Replay behaves identically under X11 and Wayland otherwise.
Recording won't start
Make sure a camera and a working microphone are available to the system — check they show up in your desktop's sound and camera settings. A recording with no working microphone still saves, just silently, rather than not saving at all.
Running on a Raspberry Pi 4
Stick to 720p — it's the floor this app is built for, not an afterthought. Use a case with active cooling: sustained camera capture, decoding and encoding all at once will throttle a passively-cooled Pi under load, especially in a warm gym. Cameras are USB 2.0 on a Pi 4, so treat two cameras at once as something to test on the day rather than assume — see Cameras — USB, One or Two.
I set an alias but I'm not on the leaderboard
The board isn't live yet — see Sharing the App with a Mate. Your alias is saved on this computer in the meantime.
I can't change my alias
Once published, an alias is locked for six months, and the app shows the date yours can next be changed.
I want my alias taken down
Open it from the opening screen and click Remove my alias. That takes you off the board — though anything already indexed or cached by search engines is out of anyone's hands.
Pro didn't come back after reinstalling the app
Open the paywall and click Already subscribed? Restore. Your licence follows this computer's Machine ID, so a reinstall on the same machine picks it straight back up.
💡 Still stuck? Email support@webgecko.au and tell us your distribution, desktop environment (GNOME, KDE, etc.) and camera model, and what happened.