Watching and Simultaneously Saving Video in mplayer - is it possible?

This is a question I've posed in the Ubuntu forums, but I haven't found the answer yet.

I've got a great little IP security camera - the Y-Cam. It's Internet accessible, so it can email me photos of any suspicious behaviour. It will also stream video and audio to a number of devices - including mobiles.

Under Linux, it's very easy to get the video and audio via mplayer.

mplayer http://username:[email protected]/stream.asf

And we get this rather spiffy video playing.
ycam stream mplayer

In fact, there are a number of streams available (depending on camera), including RTSP and 3GP. The ASF stream seems the most Linux friendly.

It's also possible to save the video to a file - so if you catch a miscreant in the act of pilfering, you have video and audio evidence.

mplayer http://user:[email protected]/stream.asf
    -dumpstream -dumpfile ycam.asf

You now have a file which can be played back.

What I can't seem to work out is how to do the two together. I want a command which will show me the video and at the same time save it to disk.

So, fearless Internet commentors - any helpful suggestions?

3 comments

  1. Adrián $uiz

    Terence, you can use a pipe to redirect output from mplayer and capture it into a file, while it is playing on screen.

    For example:

    First, you must create a pipe:

    mkfifo ./videoPipe

    Then, you must execute a process to read stream from this pipe, and play it. Don't forgot '&' for working on background:

    cat ./videoPipe | tee -a -i video.asf | mplayer - &

    'tee' command, save the stream into a file, and send it to 'mplayer'.

    And finally, you must send data to pipe:

    mplayer http://user:[email protected]/stream.asf
    -dumpstream -dumpfile ./videoPipe

    Reply
  3. Dan

    what about:
    mplayer http://user:[email protected]/stream.asf -dumpstream -dumpfile ./mystream.asf

    and in another terminal:
    mplayer - < ./mystream.asf

    Reply

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