[SOLVED] trying to view my webcam using mplayer

[kmitnick]

i am using this command:

mplayer tv:// -tv driver=x11:width=640:height=480:device=/dev/video0

my webcam:

Bus 005 Device 002: ID 04f2:b008 Chicony Electronics Co., Ltd

i looked using google and i found that the driver is gspca so in the previous command i tried gspca and i got

abed@kmitnick-laptop:/usr/src/modules/gspca$ mplayer tv:// -tv driver=gspca:width=640:height=480:device=/dev/video0
MPlayer 1.0rc2-4.3.2 (C) 2000-2007 MPlayer Team
CPU: Intel(R) Core(TM) Duo CPU T2450 @ 2.00GHz (Family: 6, Model: 14, Stepping: 12)
CPUflags: MMX: 1 MMX2: 1 3DNow: 0 3DNow2: 0 SSE: 1 SSE2: 1
Compiled with runtime CPU detection.
mplayer: could not connect to socket
mplayer: No such file or directory
Failed to open LIRC support. You will not be able to use your remote control.

Playing tv://.
TV file format detected.
No such driver: gspca


Exiting... (End of file)
abed@kmitnick-laptop:/usr/src/modules/gspca$

so i tried luvcview and i saw this O/P

abed@kmitnick-laptop:/usr/src/modules/gspca$ luvcview
luvcview 0.2.4

SDL information:
Video driver: x11
A window manager is available
Device information:
Device path: /dev/video0
Stream settings:
Frame format: YUYV (MJPG is not supported by device)
Frame size: 640x480
Frame rate: 30 fps
max 100, min 0, step 1, default 0 ,current 1
Control name:Saturation set to value:1
max 100, min 0, step 1, default 0 ,current 2
Control name:Saturation set to value:2

Quit signal received.
Cleanup done. Exiting ...
abed@kmitnick-laptop:/usr/src/modules/gspca$

so i tried driver=x11

but neither did x11 nor gspca worked for me anyone???

[Rubberman]

I got my webcam working on my CentOS workstation using ffmpeg, ffserver, and VLC. It took some twisted configuration of VLC to get it to work in "real time". That was last year, and I haven't used it since as it was mostly an experiment to prove it could be done, though I plan on trying to use it with Skype on my Ubuntu 9.04 laptop some time real soon now...

[kmitnick]

ok glad to hear that it did work for you, and the question is, assunimg we are using ffmpeg , what is the command to get it done, and which driver to use?

[b2bwild]

v4l, video for linux should work fine.
while i havnt used ffmpeg for webcams, but mencoder can be used.

[Rubberman]

ok glad to hear that it did work for you, and the question is, assunimg we are using ffmpeg , what is the command to get it done, and which driver to use?

As I said, it was an experiment over a year ago - I don't remember the exact sequence of actions I did to pipe the stream to VLC - I'd have to re-discover that and right now I don't have the time.

As for the driver, see this site for webcam drivers and information: http://mxhaard.free.fr/spca5xx.html

[reed9]

This is what I use for my webcam with mplayer.

mplayer tv:// -tv driver=v4l2:width=352:height=288

[kmitnick]

i tried your code reed9
and i have this

abed@kmitnick-laptop:~/Desktop$ mplayer tv:// -tv driver=v4l2:width=352:height=288
MPlayer 1.0rc2-4.3.2 (C) 2000-2007 MPlayer Team
CPU: Intel(R) Core(TM) Duo CPU T2450 @ 2.00GHz (Family: 6, Model: 14, Stepping: 12)
CPUflags: MMX: 1 MMX2: 1 3DNow: 0 3DNow2: 0 SSE: 1 SSE2: 1
Compiled with runtime CPU detection.
mplayer: could not connect to socket
mplayer: No such file or directory
Failed to open LIRC support. You will not be able to use your remote control.

Playing tv://.
TV file format detected.
Selected driver: v4l2
name: Video 4 Linux 2 input
author: Martin Olschewski <olschewski@zpr.uni-koeln.de>
comment: first try, more to come
v4l2: ioctl get standard failed: Invalid argument
Selected device: Chicony USB 2.0 Camera
Capabilites: video capture streaming
supported norms:
inputs: 0 = Camera 1;
Current input: 0
Current format: YUYV
v4l2: ioctl set format failed: Invalid argument
v4l2: ioctl set format failed: Invalid argument
v4l2: ioctl set format failed: Invalid argument
tv.c: norm_from_string(pal): Bogus norm parameter, setting default.
v4l2: ioctl enum norm failed: Invalid argument
Error: Cannot set norm!
Selected input hasn't got a tuner!
v4l2: ioctl set mute failed: Invalid argument
FPS not specified in the header or invalid, use the -fps option.
No stream found.

v4l2: ioctl set mute failed: Invalid argument
v4l2: 0 frames successfully processed, 0 frames dropped.

Exiting... (End of file)
abed@kmitnick-laptop:~/Desktop$

[b2bwild]

v4l2 is unable to use your webcam.
try utility like gtKam or webcam

[kmitnick]

problem solved all wha i had to do is to define the frame per second rate
so the command will look like this:

mplayer -fps 30 -tv driver=v4l2:width=640:height=480:device=/dev/video0 tv://