i found that some of my habits actually quickly minimized my video window right before a seizure-like experience, hiding video of it. i'm using KDE now, after a some small reviews between it and gnome for things. In KDE, right clicking on the title bar, then going to More Actions, then Special Window Settings, I was able to disable minimization on the window entirely under the Size & Position tab. [check: minimized -> force -> no]. notes: ffmpeg can record terminal sessions as video as well as X, but i'm set up for X right now. it's pretty rare that i stabilize this for a bit.