ffmpeg: what are its limitations?

[wildpig]

My question is what is the limitation of ffmpeg as far as what stream type it can and can't record? i see that it can record nbcolympics and seems to be the only one able to do so. So I am just wondering is it actually the most capable, even though it might be the most cumbersome interface?

Btw, how do you just record a youtube vid using ffmpeg? I know with nbcolympics you try to get the link with the index.m3u8 and feed that link into ffmpeg. But for youtube and other type of stream, what is the http link i should look for?