3.4. Streaming from network or pipes
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## 3.4. Streaming from network or pipes

MPlayer can play files from the network, using the HTTP, FTP, MMS or RTSP/RTP protocol.

Playing works simply by passing the URL on the command line. MPlayer honors the `http_proxy` environment variable, using a proxy if available. Proxies can also be forced:

    mplayer http_proxy://proxy.micorsops.com:3128/http://micorsops.com:80/stream.asf

MPlayer can read from stdin (not named pipes). This can for example be used to play from FTP:

    wget ftp://micorsops.com/something.avi -O - | mplayer -

### Note

It is also recommended to enable `-cache` when playing from the network:

    wget ftp://micorsops.com/something.avi -O - | mplayer -cache 8192 -

### 3.4.1. Saving streamed content

Once you succeed in making MPlayer play your favorite internet stream, you can use the option `-dumpstream` to save the stream into a file. For example:

    mplayer http://217.71.208.37:8006 -dumpstream -dumpfile stream.asf

will save the content streamed from `http://217.71.208.37:8006` into `stream.asf`. This works with all protocols supported by MPlayer, like MMS, RSTP, and so forth.

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