Passing HTTP Headers to FFmpeg

FFmpeg is

a very fast video and audio converter that can also grab from a live audio/video source. It can also convert between arbitrary sample rates and resize video on the fly with a high quality polyphase filter.

Great. So how do you consume a url with custom HTTP headers? The documentation for providing custom HTTP headers is non existent.

The below example is for adding a single header:

ffmpeg -headers $'X-API-KEY: MyApiKey' -i http://localhost:8080/file -v trace

# Results in

GET /file HTTP/1.1
User-Agent: Lavf/56.40.101
Accept: */*
Range: bytes=0-
Connection: close
Host: localhost:8080
Icy-MetaData: 1
X-API-KEY: MyApiKey

The below example is for adding multiple headers. Notice the required line breaks \r\n.

ffmpeg -headers $'X-API-KEY: MyApiKey\r\nX-API-SECRET:asfd\r\n' -i http://localhost:8080/file -v trace

# Results in:

GET /file HTTP/1.1
User-Agent: Lavf/56.40.101
Accept: */*
Range: bytes=0-
Connection: close
Host: localhost:8080
Icy-MetaData: 1
X-API-KEY: MyApiKey
X-API-SECRET:asfd

If you need to do this from a Windows command line you will have issues injecting the CRLF. Read more about potential fixes (and more than you ever wanted to know about line breaks in Windows).

The -v trace options gives the most detailed logging.