Play VLC stream without interface

For playing vlc in the command line without launching a ui, it looks like this page has what you need.

Specifically, I think you want this command:

vlc --intf dummy vcd://

This specifies a dummy interface that never acually launches anything. I can't test this because I am away from my linux box right now, but here's the full command I think you're looking for:

vlc --intf dummy <stream>

To use vlc without interface, I just use this command:

cvlc stream