command line start|stop recording a stream

[steebu]

As a novice VLC user, could someone help me out with the command line I would need to start and stop a recording on a winxp box a stream from an IP camera via http?

I've seen some stuff with recording a stream from the command line, but how do I stop recording the stream and save it to a file?

The camera is accessible via http and is always on. I want to be able to tell VLC when to start and stop, and it is NOT based on duration (e.g., start recording and record for 5 seconds).

What I'm really trying to do is synchronize some other software to send a "start record" and "stop record" and "save file" signal to the camera. So, when the user clicks a button in some other app that sends a signal to VLC to start recording the stream given a certain filename. When the user clicks the button again in the other app that sends a signal to VLC to stop recording.