Linux / Unix: Record / Capture MMS Stream And Save To a File

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How do I capture capture mms-wmv (Microsoft Media Server) streams under Linux operating systems? How do I capture capture mms://ip/foo/bar streams under Unix like operating systems?


Linux and Unix comes with various commands and apps that can be used to capture Microsoft Media Server (MMS) network streaming. MMS can be transported via UDP or TCP. The MMS default port is UDP/TCP 1755.

You can use mencoder command as follows to caputre mms stream:

mencoder mms://ip-address/foo.wmv -ovc copy -oac copy -o foo.avi
mencoder mms://1.2.3.4/bar.wmv -ovc copy -oac copy -o bar.avi

Once done use mplayer command to play foo.avi:
$ mplayer foo.avi
VLC user can use the following command line option:
$ cvlc -vvv mms://1.2.3.4/foo/bar --sout file/avi:output.avi
$ vlc mms://1.2.3.4/foo/bar --sout=file/ps:output.mpg

Posted by: Vivek Gite

The author is the creator of nixCraft and a seasoned sysadmin, DevOps engineer, and a trainer for the Linux operating system/Unix shell scripting. Get the latest tutorials on SysAdmin, Linux/Unix and open source topics via RSS/XML feed or weekly email newsletter.

3 comment

  1. I’ve used mplayer in a similar way with the “dumpstream” option: this is to record a MP3 stream:
    mplayer -dumpstream -dumpfile .mp3 -cache 65536

    Also, while this is going on, I found you can use VLC to play back the file as it’s being created – and thus listen to it almost live, just a few seconds behind. VLC recognises that the file is getting bigger and adjusts the playback accordingly.

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