HD webcam streaming with Pandaboard

[Jeroen]

Hi,

I have a HD webcam connected to my pandaboard, and I want to do
streaming with vlc. The streaming works, but according to "top", it
consumes 115% cpu (I wonder how that's even possible?), and it seems
the stream drops some frames now and then.

This is the vlm.conf file I use:

--
new camNumber2 broadcast enabled
setup camNumber2 input v4l2:///dev/video2:width=640:height=480
setup camNumber2 output
#transcode{vcodec=mp2v,acodec=none,vb=5000}:standard{access=http,mux=ogg,dst=0.0.0.0:8080}
control camNumber2 play
---

I reduced the resolution which seems to solve some issues, but cpu
usage is still very high. My webcam is a logitech c525 with native
resolution of 1280x720 (720).

Since the stream is only used on my own network, I want to settle for
higher bandwith use, if I just can get decent image quality without
overloading my cpu all the time.

I'm using the Ubuntu pandaboard image (without the omap-multimedia
extensions). I doubt that those extensions will help me, since they
are for video-decoding, not encoding (right?).

I also used mp4v encoding, but that also occupies a lot of cpu power.

Thanks,

Jeroen.

[Nicolas Dechesne]

On Sun, May 27, 2012 at 1:04 PM, Jeroen <jeroenja...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I have a HD webcam connected to my pandaboard, and I want to do
> streaming with vlc. The streaming works, but according to "top", it
> consumes 115% cpu (I wonder how that's even possible?), and it seems
> the stream drops some frames now and then.

without doing anything special, you would be using ARM CPU for
encoding and image processing, so nothing surprising really ;-)

>
> This is the vlm.conf file I use:
>
> --
> new camNumber2 broadcast enabled
> setup camNumber2 input v4l2:///dev/video2:width=640:height=480
> setup camNumber2 output
> #transcode{vcodec=mp2v,acodec=none,vb=5000}:standard{access=http,mux=ogg,dst=0.0.0.0:8080}
> control camNumber2 play
> --
>

> I reduced the resolution which seems to solve some issues, but cpu
> usage is still very high. My webcam is a logitech c525 with native
> resolution of 1280x720 (720).
>
> Since the stream is only used on my own network, I want to settle for
> higher bandwith use, if I just can get decent image quality without
> overloading my cpu all the time.
>
> I'm using the Ubuntu pandaboard image (without the omap-multimedia
> extensions). I doubt that those extensions will help me, since they
> are for video-decoding, not encoding (right?).

no, there is encoder support as well. at least in 11.10, we haven't
pushed encoders in 12.04 yet.

we provide low level user space API (libDCE) to access the codecs, and
we provide Gstreamer plugins that work with these codecs. If you use
an application that is not using Gstreamer (such as VLC), you will
have to plug in libDCE.

however, if you use a USB webcam it is likely that the image format
won't be compatible with what OMAP h/w accelerated codecs need (NV12)
and you will need to make a YUV->NV12 on ARM, before you can use the
codecs, but at least you can get read of the encoding on ARM, get a
high quality stream..

Gstreamer can do that like this:

http://omappedia.org/index.php?title=Gstreamer_overview#Display_webcam_video

[Joaquin Castellanos]

Hi

I used some Gstreamer pipelines with ducati codecs to test video-streaming

------------
server (Pandaboard):
gst-launch -v gstrtpbin name=rtpbin  \
v4l2src device=/dev/video3  num-buffers=200000 ! "video/x-raw-yuv, width=640, height=480,framerate=30/1" ! queue !  ffmpegcolorspace ! tee name=tee tee.src1 ! queue ! autovideosink \
tee.src2 ! queue ! ducatimpeg4enc ! mpeg4videoparse !  rtpmp4vpay ! rtpbin.send_rtp_sink_0 \
rtpbin.send_rtp_src_0 ! udpsink port=5000 host=192.168.0.179 ts-offset=0 name=vrtpsink \
rtpbin.send_rtcp_src_0 ! udpsink port=5001 host=192.168.0.179 sync=false async=false name=vrtcpsink \
udpsrc port=5005 name=vrtpsrc ! rtpbin.recv_rtcp_sink_0


client (Desktop):
gst-launch -v gstrtpbin name=rtpbin latency=200 \
udpsrc caps="application/x-rtp, media=(string)video, clock-rate=(int)90000, encoding-name=(string)MP4V-ES, profile-level-id=(string)0, config=(string)00000100000001200086e00025006007ec00d355c801e514043c1463, ssrc=(uint)1941061319, payload=(int)96, clock-base=(uint)1446705187, seqnum-base=(uint)64474" port=5000 ! rtpbin.recv_rtp_sink_0 \
rtpbin. ! rtpmp4vdepay ! "video/mpeg" ! ffdec_mpeg4  ! ffmpegcolorspace ! ximagesink \
udpsrc port=5001 ! rtpbin.recv_rtcp_sink_0 \
rtpbin.send_rtcp_src_0 ! udpsink port=5005 host=192.168.0.179 sync=false async=false

------------

Unfortunately, as Nicolas said, the performance is not the best because ffmpegcolorspace is required between webcam stream (v4l2src) and ducatimpeg4enc to convert to the right video format.   (ffmpegcolorspace runs on the arm side)

Regards
Joaquin Castellanos

PS: Check in your client pipeline that the udpsrc caps=" ... " string match the caps of the server pipeline. See the output log in your terminal.

[Vladimir Pantelic]

And ffmpegcolorspace must be the only piece of SW ever
written that is able to do some color conversion...

[Jeroen]

Thanks for your reply.

I never messed with GStreamer before, and from the looks of it, it seems to have the most counter-intuitive syntax I've ever seen. I'll think I'll stick for VLC a bit longer (even if that means higher cpu use).

Are there any plans to integrate Ducati with VLC too?

[Vladimir Pantelic]

Jeroen wrote:
> Thanks for your reply.
>
> I never messed with GStreamer before, and from the looks of it, it seems to have the most counter-intuitive syntax I've
> ever seen. I'll think I'll stick for VLC a bit longer (even if that means higher cpu use).
>
> Are there any plans to integrate Ducati with VLC too?

none that I know of so far, but also nothing
that I would consider undoable. VLC already
supports TI Codec Engine from Davinci times,
so using that a base for dce might be a good
starting point.

[Jeroen]

Hi,

I don't get it... why do you need so many ports, and encode the server's ip address in the server-setup? Can't I just use 0.0.0.0 to make it work?

Also, how do I view this on a windows computer with VLC. VLC seems unable to open the stream, no matter which port I use...

This seems also to put the video on the screen. Isn't it possible tojust do the streaming, without putting it on the pandaboard screen output?


Greetz,

J.

On Monday, May 28, 2012 7:22:33 PM UTC+2, Joaquin Castellanos wrote:

Hi

I used some Gstreamer pipelines with ducati codecs to test video-streaming

------------
server (Pandaboard):
gst-launch -v gstrtpbin name=rtpbin  \
v4l2src device=/dev/video3  num-buffers=200000 ! "video/x-raw-yuv, width=640, height=480,framerate=30/1" ! queue !  ffmpegcolorspace ! tee name=tee tee.src1 ! queue ! autovideosink \
tee.src2 ! queue ! ducatimpeg4enc ! mpeg4videoparse !  rtpmp4vpay ! rtpbin.send_rtp_sink_0 \
rtpbin.send_rtp_src_0 ! udpsink port=5000 host=192.168.0.179 ts-offset=0 name=vrtpsink \
rtpbin.send_rtcp_src_0 ! udpsink port=5001 host=192.168.0.179 sync=false async=false name=vrtcpsink \
udpsrc port=5005 name=vrtpsrc ! rtpbin.recv_rtcp_sink_0


client (Desktop):
gst-launch -v gstrtpbin name=rtpbin latency=200 \
udpsrc caps="application/x-rtp, media=(string)video, clock-rate=(int)90000, encoding-name=(string)MP4V-ES, profile-level-id=(string)0, config=(string)00000100000001200086e00025006007ec00d355c801e514043c1463, ssrc=(uint)1941061319, payload=(int)96, clock-base=(uint)1446705187, seqnum-base=(uint)64474" port=5000 ! rtpbin.recv_rtp_sink_0 \
rtpbin. ! rtpmp4vdepay ! "video/mpeg" ! ffdec_mpeg4  ! ffmpegcolorspace ! ximagesink \
udpsrc port=5001 ! rtpbin.recv_rtcp_sink_0 \
rtpbin.send_rtcp_src_0 ! udpsink port=5005 host=192.168.0.179 sync=false async=false

------------

Unfortunately, as Nicolas said, the performance is not the best because ffmpegcolorspace is required between webcam stream (v4l2src) and ducatimpeg4enc to convert to the right video format.   (ffmpegcolorspace runs on the arm side)

Regards
Joaquin Castellanos

PS: Check in your client pipeline that the udpsrc caps=" ... " string match the caps of the server pipeline. See the output log in your terminal.

On Sun, May 27, 2012 at 7:19 PM, Nicolas Dechesne  wrote:

[Joaquin Castellanos]

Hi

Those pipelines were only an example. You can always remove the video output in pandaboard side and adjust the pipeline to your needs.

e.g.
----------
server (Pandaboard):
gst-launch -v gstrtpbin name=rtpbin  v4l2src device=/dev/video3  num-buffers=200000 ! "video/x-raw-yuv, width=640, height=480,framerate=30/1" ! queue !  colorspace ! tee name=tee tee.src1 ! queue ! autovideosink tee.src2 ! queue ! ducatimpeg4enc ! mpeg4videoparse !  rtpmp4vpay ! rtpbin.send_rtp_sink_0 rtpbin.send_rtp_src_0 ! udpsink port=5000 host=192.168.0.100 ts-offset=0 name=vrtpsink

client (Desktop):
gst-launch -v gstrtpbin name=rtpbin latency=200 udpsrc caps="application/x-rtp, media=(string)video, clock-rate=(int)90000, encoding-name=(string)MP4V-ES, profile-level-id=(string)0, config=(string)00000100000001200086e00025006007ec00d355c801e514043c1463, ssrc=(uint)1941061319, payload=(int)96, clock-base=(uint)1446705187, seqnum-base=(uint)64474" port=5000 ! rtpbin.recv_rtp_sink_0 rtpbin. ! rtpmp4vdepay ! "video/mpeg" ! ffdec_mpeg4  ! ffmpegcolorspace ! ximagesink

----------

http://cgit.freedesktop.org/gstreamer/gst-plugins-good/tree/gst/rtp/README#n251


Regards
Joaquin

[Joaquin Castellanos]

When you try

#  ls /dev/video*

did you see your camera mounted ?  You could try to find out which one corresponds to your camera and then select that  device in Cheese: edit>preferences .

Regards
Joaquín Castellanos

On Thu, Aug 2, 2012 at 10:22 AM, <johnto...@gmail.com> wrote:

Hi, I have the same camera as you but I cannot figure out how to get it to work. When I open Cheese I get an error saying "device not found", but running lsusb shows the camera. Mind teaching me the magic you used to get it to work? :)

Thanks,

John

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