Downloading a Flash video stream under Linux with rtmpdump: Downloading the video stream

Version: 1.0 (4/Nov/2010)

This is actually the easy part: you have rtmpdump installed, and you have the RTMP URL. Just enter the following command line:

rtmpdump -r rtmp_url -o filename.flv

If everything is fine, rtmpdump will connect to the stream and save it into the file named filename.flv. After some time (depending on the length of the video) you will end up with a FLV video file containing the entire streaming, from when the connection started to when the connection ended. For on demand video, that will be the entire video, while for live video it will be the section from when you connected to when either the live transmission ends, or the connection is broken for whatever reason (including you terminating the application). FLV files can then be opened with several applications (VLC, MPlayer). Let's celebrate!