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.

old webcam

I'm able to use cheese or VLC to view the output of the Venus webcam just fine.

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