streamer(1)

📦
version 3.107 · 2 versions
, in debian bookworm, debian trixie, ubuntu jammy, ubuntu noble, ubuntu questing, ubuntu resolute, ubuntu stonking

💖 streamer — the manual page, but make it cute 💖

okay so bestie, welcome to streamer, from the General Commands Manual, section 1. yes we're doing a whole manpage in group chat voice. sit down, hydrate, let's go. 🍓

✨ NAME ✨

streamer — record audio and/or video 🎥🎙️

✨ SYNOPSIS ✨

streamer [ options ]

that's it. that's the whole vibe. options go in, content comes out. 💅

✨ DESCRIPTION ✨

so here's the tea: streamer reads audio and/or video data from /dev/video0 and /dev/dsp, and then writes that data to the disk. yes. to the disk. it's giving archival. various output formats are supported, and if you want the full list of options and supported output formats, just start streamer with -h and it'll spill everything. 👑

here's the clever part: streamer will use the file extension of the output file name to figure out which format to use. so it already knows. main character energy honestly. you only actually need the -f/-F options if the extension allows more than one format — like, ambiguous much? 🙈

and if you ever get hit with the "neither audio nor video format specified/found" message and you're standing there like ??? bestie, same. you can enable the debug output (that's the -d switch) to see what is actually going on. fr fr, it will tell you.

okay but the IMPORTANT one: you can safely stop the recording at any time with Ctrl+C. streamer will catch the signal and stop recording correctly — meaning it writes the movie file headers — before exiting. no corrupted files, no drama, no crying. she's got you. 🫶✨

✨ EXAMPLES ✨

look at her go. two little demos, both iconic:

  • streamer -o foobar.jpeg — write a single jpeg file. one (1) jpeg. simple. slay. 🎀
  • streamer -o quicktime.mov -f yuv2 -F stereo -r 12 -t 0:10 — record a short quicktime movie. ten whole seconds of cinema. 🌈

✨ SEE ALSO ✨

go read these too, they're in the family:

✨ AUTHOR ✨

Gerd Knorr <kraxel@bytesex.org> — the literal legend who made this. 👑 we love him. 💜

bestie this is the legal part so we're reading it properly, no skipping, no skimming:

This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.

This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more details.

You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along with this program; if not, write to the Free Software Foundation, Inc., 675 Mass Ave, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA.

like, read the license okay?? it's literally free software, be normal about it. 💖

and that's the whole page, bestie!! this was streamer, living in the General Commands Manual, page 1. the footer's just her name again — no version, no date line, she's timeless like that. 🦋✨ go record something iconic. periodt. 💅💖🎀

📦 where this page comes from