[MPlayer-users] Problems recording pwc webcam

[Reimar Döffinger]

On Mon, Dec 10, 2012 at 09:18:18PM +0000, andrea wrote:
> On 12/09/2012 10:54 PM, Carl Eugen Hoyos wrote:
> >> 2) I cannot use -dumpstream in mplayer
> > 
> > -dumpstream does not work for every input, 
> > it cannot work for tv.
> > (It is particularly useful for dvb:// and dvd://)
> 
> I am curious to know why the stream from the tv cannot be saved.
> what is the fundamental difference?

The V4L interface is not stream-based, it is based on individual
video frames.
Furthermore, audio and video come from separate sources,
so providing a stream would involve muxing them
together, which would be quite annoying to implement.
However you should be able to use -dumpvideo to only
save the video steam, but that still leaves the issue
that you'd usually still want to have the audio as well.