Raspberry Pi Webcam Streaming

Steaming a Webcam from the Raspberry Pi to a Browser.

This project was tested on a Raspberry Pi 3 B+ with Raspbian GNU/Linux 9 (stretch) Lite and ffmpeg version 3.2.10.

Setup

Install ffmpeg

sudo apt install ffmpeg

Obtain a copy of the code that will setup the stream

git clone https://github.com/danielwohlgemuth/rpi-webcam-stream.git

Navigate into the cloned repository

cd rpi-webcam-stream

Setup the stream

source setup.sh

Find out your Raspberry Pi's IP address

hostname --all-ip-addresses

Access the Raspberry Pi's IP Address you got from the last command on Port 8090 and append /webcam to see the stream. Something like http://RaspberryIPAddress:8090/webcam.

Note: At most 2 streams can be active at the same time with the current configuration. Increase MaxBandwidth, MaxClients, and VideoBitRate in ffserver.conf to increase this limit.

Screenshot of the Webcam Stream

Adapt or troubleshoot configuration

This project consist of 3 main files: ffserver.conf, rpi-webcam-capture.service, and rpi-webcam-stream.service.

By executing setup.sh, ffserver.conf is copied into /etc/rpi-webcam-stream, rpi-webcam-capture.service and rpi-webcam-stream.service are copied into /etc/systemd/system/.

ffserver.conf

ffserver.conf contains the configuration for the stream. Take a look at https://www.ffmpeg.org/ffserver.html if you'd like to make changes to it.

rpi-webcam-stream.service

rpi-webcam-stream.service defines the background task responsible for streaming. It uses the configuration specified in /etc/rpi-webcam-stream/ffserver.conf for it.

This task also starts rpi-webcam-capture.service.

See if the task is running

systemctl status rpi-webcam-stream.service

See the complete log output

journalctl -u rpi-webcam-stream.service

rpi-webcam-capture.service

rpi-webcam-capture.service defines the background task responsible for capturing the video content from the webcam. It uses FFmpeg to do this.

It is started by rpi-webcam-stream.service.

See if the task is running

systemctl status rpi-webcam-capture.service

See the complete log output

journalctl -u rpi-webcam-capture.service

Video Troubleshooting

List available video devices

v4l2-ctl --list-devices

The output should look similar to this

UVC Camera (046d:081b) (usb-3f980000.usb-1.1.3):
	/dev/video0

List available resolutions

ffmpeg -hide_banner -f v4l2 -list_formats all -i /dev/video0

The output should look similar to this

[video4linux2,v4l2 @ 0xd6e5c0] Raw       :     yuyv422 :           YUYV 4:2:2 : 640x480 160x120 176x144 320x176 320x240 352x288 432x240 544x288 640x360 752x416 800x448 800x600 864x480 960x544 960x720 1024x576 1184x656 1280x720 1280x960
[video4linux2,v4l2 @ 0xd6e5c0] Compressed:       mjpeg :          Motion-JPEG : 640x480 160x120 176x144 320x176 320x240 352x288 432x240 544x288 640x360 752x416 800x448 800x600 864x480 960x544 960x720 1024x576 1184x656 1280x720 1280x960
/dev/video0: Immediate exit requested

Make a 15 seconds video recording

ffmpeg -hide_banner -thread_queue_size 512 -f v4l2 -i /dev/video0 -t 15 out.avi

Audio Troubleshooting

List available audio devices

arecord -l

The output should look similar to this

**** List of CAPTURE Hardware Devices ****
card 1: U0x46d0x81b [USB Device 0x46d:0x81b], device 0: USB Audio [USB Audio]
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0

Notice the number following card and device. Those are used in the next command at hw:card,device

Make a 15 seconds sound recording.

ffmpeg -hide_banner -ac 1 -f alsa -i hw:1,0 -t 15 out.wav

Capture Video and Audio together

ffmpeg -hide_banner -thread_queue_size 512 -ac 1 -f alsa -i hw:1,0 -f v4l2 -i /dev/video0 -t 15 out.avi