I'm on a Mac with MacOS Sierra installed. I've installed ffmpeg with homebrew. I list my devices via:
ffmpeg -f avfoundation -list_devices true -i ""
which returns:
[AVFoundation input device @ 0x7fc2de40e840] AVFoundation video devices:
[AVFoundation input device @ 0x7fc2de40e840] [0] FaceTime HD Camera
[AVFoundation input device @ 0x7fc2de40e840] [1] Capture screen 0
[AVFoundation input device @ 0x7fc2de40e840] AVFoundation audio devices:
[AVFoundation input device @ 0x7fc2de40e840] [0] Built-in Microphone
I don't need audio so I start my 5 second screen recording via:
ffmpeg -f avfoundation -t '5' -i '1' test.mov
It creates an mov file in the working directory but doesn't stop after 5 seconds. In fact, I can't even stop the recording as it suggests by pressing 'q'. Ctl-C doesn't work either, and I am left with force quitting via Activity Monitor. I've tried this same command but using device 0 (FaceTime camera) and it stops after 5 seconds.
If someone can solve that riddle, my next question is how can I watch the newly created file in quicktime (I'm thinking I'll need to encode or decode or something) because even the FaceTime video file would not open in QuickTime. It just says "The document could not be opened". It does, however, open with VLC.
UPDATE: I've tried this on an older OS (Yosemite) and got the same results (thought it might be the new OS that broke it).