Video streaming device

background

I'm trying to come up with something like a raspberry pi with a webcam attached that I can use to stream video to any old web browser on the local network.

The first use of this may be to put a "window" into a room that has no natural light by setting up a webcam looking out a window and then dedicating a tablet to display the streamed video from the other window.

Extra points for layering an image of curtains on top of the stream to make it look more like a real window.

find the right protocol

My first working attempt at this uses ogg (theora vorbis)

The server has an attached webcam via usb and runs vlc with these settings:

:sout=#transcode{vcodec=theo,vb=800,acodec=vorb,ab=128,channels=2,samplerate=44100}:http{dst=:8080/stream.ogg} :sout-keep

The client displays this url:

http://localhost:8080/stream.ogg

That arrangement works when hosted from my fedora 20 laptop using builtin webcam, but not so much when I host from the my ubuntu 14.10 desktop and an external USB webcam.

The lag is pretty bad compared to a video call like skype or hangouts. I should be able to do better with some tuning.

find details of external webcam video output

vlc recognizes the external webcam as a video capture device titled "Venus USB2.0 Camera"

Clicking on "Information..." about the Venus capture device shows this codec info:

codec: packed YUV 42:2, YU:U:Y:V (YUY2)
resolution: 800x600
frame rate: 12.5