Getting started with Raspbery Pi Camera module

Reviewed by Editor: Jack Allison

Raspberry Pi Camera modules:

– Daylight (ebay)
– Infra-red sensitive Pi NoIR module (ebay): PiNoIR

Installation

Installation command:

sudo apt-get install -y python-picamera

Optional command (for development in python version #3 and up):

sudo apt-get install python3-picamera python-rpi.gpio

You will be able to start using the camera (directly from terminal command line or by some minimal Python scripting) with the help of the links provided below.

Find my usage in the descriptions of my experiments in this blog.

Streaming video to Web

Note: To me using nc (Netcat) appeared as best network+cpu performance option with highest resolution being transmitted and displayed on RPi with less possible delay/glitches/hangs.

Upgrade your RPi before any streaming approach you will chose

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get dist-upgrade
sudo rpi-update

Streaming to youtube

to have /dev/video0

sudo modprobe bcm2835-v4l2
chmod 666 /dev/video0

to stream to youtube you will need your personal channel code in format: username.xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx

raspivid -o - -t 0 -vf -hf -w 1280 -h 720 -fps 20 -b 4000000 -g 50 | ./ffmpeg -re -ar 44100 -ac 2 -acodec pcm_s16le -f s16le -ac 2 -i /dev/zero -f h264 -i - -vcodec copy -acodec aac -ab 128k -g 50 -strict experimental -f flv -force_key_frames 'expr:gte(t,n_forced*2)' rtmp://a.rtmp.youtube.com/live2/<your personal channel in format: username.xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx>

Streaming using VLC (RPi can NOT serve receiving side: suffocated)

– Install VLC player

sudo apt-get install vlc

– To start streaming, type the following at shell command-line:

raspivid -o - -t 0 -n -w 640 -h 480 -f 20 |cvlc -vvv stream:///dev/stdin --sout '#standard{access=http,mux=ts,dst=:8080}' :demux=h264

– Now you should be able to receive your stream by VLC’s ‘Open Network Stream’ menu-command by using the following URL: http://<RPi_IP>:8080/

To be able to receive this stream through WEB login into your router and edit Network Address Translation (NAT) parameters. You will need to define a Virtual Server so that remote users accessing services such as the Web or FTP at your local site via Public IP Addresses can be automatically redirected to local servers configured with Private IP Addresses. In other words, depending on the requested service (TCP/UDP) port number, the Broadband router redirects the external service request to the appropriate internal server (located at one of your LAN’s Private IP Address).

– What remained is to detect which IP address is assigned to your home router at WAN. This may be done by the following command:

ping -r 4 www.google.com

You will notice that first address appearing in this ping trace that doesn’t rel;ate to your LAN is fixed while the rest change between pings.

– You can use this fixed Web IP address to access your RPi stream with VLC UI or command line:

"C:\Program Files (x86)\VideoLAN\VLC\vlc.exe" "http://<RPi_Web_IP>:8080/"

Streaming RPi to RPi using Netcat (nc)

Streaming side on the RPi camera:

TCP: raspivid -t 0 -w 1280 -h 720 -vf -ih -fps 10 -o - | nc -k -l -p 2222

TCP: raspivid -t 0 -w 1280 -h 720 -vf -ih -fps 10 -o - | nc <IP-OF-THE-CLIENT> 2222

UDP: raspivid -t 0 -w 1280 -h 720 -vf -ih -fps 10 -o - | nc -u <IP-OF-THE-CLIENT> 2222

Receiving side on the RPi HDMI display:

TCP: nc -l 2222 | mplayer -fps 20 -demuxer h264es -

UDP: nc -lu 2222 | mplayer -fps 20 -demuxer h264es -

Streaming RPi to RPi using UV4L

Relatively good performance, but the motion with Netcat is much more fluent)

– Camera side:

wget http://www.linux-projects.org/listing/uv4l_repo/lrkey.asc 
sudo apt-key add ./lrkey.asc

sudo nano /etc/apt/sources.list

add the following line to /etc/apt/sources.list

deb http://www.linux-projects.org/listing/uv4l_repo/raspbian/ wheezy main

update

sudo apt-get update

install uv4l

sudo apt-get install uv4l uv4l-raspicam uv4l-raspicam-extras uv4l-server uv4l-uvc uv4l-xscreen uv4l-mjpegstream

reboot

and then start the server

sudo pkill uv4l 

sudo uv4l -nopreview --auto-video_nr --driver raspicam --encoding mjpeg --width 640 --height 480 --framerate 20 --server-option '--port=9090' --server-option '--max-queued-connections=30' --server-option '--max-streams=25' --server-option '--max-threads=29'

Recieving side. In Internet Browser use the following address:

http://<Your public IP>:9090/stream

Streaming RPi to RPi using GStreamer (bad frame-rate and image quality)

– Installing gstreamer1.0

Add the Following line to /etc/apt/sources.list (to open editor: sudo nano /etc/apt/sources.list)

deb http://vontaene.de/raspbian-updates/ . main

Then update rpi again

sudo apt-get update

Install gstreamer

sudo apt-get install gstreamer1.0

For proper Installing of Gstreamer on the receiving side (Debian Jessie in my case). This is essential to have all components of matching versions and to avoid segmentation faults (SIGSEGV)

apt-get install libgstreamer1.0-0 libgstreamer1.0-0-dbg libgstreamer1.0-dev liborc-0.4-0 liborc-0.4-0-dbg liborc-0.4-dev liborc-0.4-doc gir1.2-gst-plugins-base-1.0 gir1.2-gstreamer-1.0 gstreamer1.0-alsa gstreamer1.0-doc gstreamer1.0-omx gstreamer1.0-plugins-bad gstreamer1.0-plugins-bad-dbg gstreamer1.0-plugins-bad-doc gstreamer1.0-plugins-base gstreamer1.0-plugins-base-apps gstreamer1.0-plugins-base-dbg gstreamer1.0-plugins-base-doc gstreamer1.0-plugins-good gstreamer1.0-plugins-good-dbg gstreamer1.0-plugins-good-doc gstreamer1.0-plugins-ugly gstreamer1.0-plugins-ugly-dbg gstreamer1.0-plugins-ugly-doc gstreamer1.0-pulseaudio gstreamer1.0-tools gstreamer1.0-x libgstreamer-plugins-bad1.0-0 libgstreamer-plugins-bad1.0-dev libgstreamer-plugins-base1.0-0 libgstreamer-plugins-base1.0-dev