USB camera - network video feed

[Sparky]

Hello!

I'd like to interface a USB (Logitech C920) camera to a computer on my network, and feed that video stream across the network to the ZM server. Was planning on using an older laptop or an older machine or maybe even a Beagle Bone Black running Debian (server also running Debian).

Can you please point me in the right direction on how this is generally done, or if it can be done?

Regards!

[bb99]

I used Vlc to do what you're wanting to do.

[Sparky]

Thank you for the response.

Did you have VLC piping the video to ZoneMinder on another machine then?

I'd made attempts with VLC as well as ffmpeg to stream video from the camera elsewhere, but could never get it right. I had it streaming to a VLC player on another machine (never did get it into ZoneMinder). Plus, it kept soaking up the entire bandwidth, whereas all I wanted was maybe 1 frame per second.

I couldn't find anything in the Wiki regarding this camera specifically, or how to do this in general, so maybe it's just not possible?

[bb99]

Maybe will help: http://www.zoneminder.com/forums/viewto ... vlc#p75962

Notice the fps throttle variable; that'll stop the run away bandwidth usage

[Sparky]

Ah, that is IT! The cvlc command in the link you posted.

Thank you so much! I can't believe you've helped me so quickly after I'd wasted so many hours on this!

It's even coming into ZoneMinder. Woohoo!

Is there an issue with specifying the fps as less than 10? It seems like when I try, the bandwidth and fps actually increase. At fps=10, the bandwidth is about 700Kbs (viewing with smplayer2 on another machine, and watching bandwidth with iftop). At fps=5, bandwidth=1.5Mbs. At fps=1, bandwidth=13.5mbs. Talk about counterintuitive!

Thanks again - I appreciate your help a lot.