Viewing a V4L webcam with mplayer…
This took me a few minutes, but I figured it out, and archived it here so I wouldn’t need to spend that time again.
mplayer -cache 128 -tv driver=v4l:width=640:height=480:outfmt=i420 -vc rawi420 -vo xv tv://
It works.
[tags]My Projects,Webcam,Mplayer[/tags]
Addendum: You can specify which video device by adding it to the tv options:
mplayer -cache 128 -tv driver=v4l:width=640:height=480:outfmt=i420:device=/dev/video1 -vc rawi420 -vo xv tv://
January 4th, 2008 at 6:24 pm
Thank you for this post!
March 19th, 2008 at 2:09 am
[...] to google and brainwagon fro the [...]
June 12th, 2008 at 10:18 pm
I am hoping this will save a lot of time…………Thanks in Anticipation
June 21st, 2008 at 8:52 am
Mine needs the frame rate. This works:
mplayer -fps 30 -tv driver=v4l:width=640:height=480:device=/dev/video1 tv://
September 1st, 2008 at 7:40 pm
Has anyone get this working with a Logitech Quickcam on N800? If yes, where can I find the kernel module?
November 8th, 2008 at 3:13 pm
Worked first time, thanks! (Using it with a Logitech Communicate STX USB webcam and the gspca driver for it, which provides a v4l interface.)
December 23rd, 2008 at 12:39 am
Need to use ‘v4l2′ driver on Hardy 8.04 (Linux thor 2.6.27-7-generic #1 SMP Fri Oct 24 06:42:44 UTC 2008 i686 GNU/Linux):
mplayer -fps 30 -cache 128 -tv driver=v4l2:width=640:height=480:device=/dev/video0 tv://
This is rockin!! Long live mplayer!
Still one of my fav apps for almost a decade.
Cheers
January 10th, 2009 at 11:04 pm
Brett’s line works with Debian Etch (4.0) as well with the backports kernel (Linux scratchy 2.6.26-bpo.1-686 #1 SMP Thu Dec 18 23:55:11 UTC 2008 i686 GNU/Linux)
http://backports.org/
January 10th, 2009 at 11:10 pm
Should have probably given this link instead:
http://packages.debian.org/etch-backports/
January 17th, 2009 at 6:40 pm
Your command line works fine with Centos 5.2 – Logitech Quickcam Pro 4000 Webcam
Mplayer installed from rpmforge using yum
February 14th, 2009 at 2:11 pm
Brett’s command line
mplayer -fps 30 -cache 128 -tv driver=v4l2:width=640:height=480:device=/dev/video0 tv://
works beautifully on my aspireone running ubuntu 8.10
thanks:)
March 10th, 2009 at 6:49 pm
Brett’s suggested command line works great with the built-in HP Webcam on HP DV5Z configure to buy systems. Slackware 12.2 (Linux version 2.6.27.7-smp) detects it automagically and loads all necessary modules. In low light a lower frame rate and smaller frame scale seems to reduce choppiness. Awesome!
Thanks!!
August 23rd, 2009 at 2:21 pm
Some web-cams (at least ID 046d:092f Logitech, Inc. QuickCam Express Plus) might also requires setting brightness and contrast parameters or manually changing them using 3/4 and 1/2 keys respectively. Otherwise, with default parameters, just black windows is displayed.
November 17th, 2009 at 4:50 pm
This is something I was looking for for a long time. Would be possible to see video stream from USB-AV/DV converter? Basicly I use 1.3ghz analog video downlink from my RC plane to Receiver witch is connected to notebook through USB video converter. I would love to see this stream on my nokia N800.
What software needs to by installed to nokia?
Can anybody advice me please?
January 14th, 2010 at 9:43 am
For me, on Ubuntu 9.04 with a” Logitech Webcam C200″ (recognized as “UVC camera”) I need to run:
mplayer tv:// -tv driver=v4l2:width=640:height=480:device=/dev/video0 -fps 30
and it works great!
April 22nd, 2010 at 8:02 pm
Same as Chris.
Toshiba L355 laptop built-in Chicony CNF7051 cam/ Debian Sid:
mplayer tv:// -tv driver=v4l2:width=320:height=240:device=/dev/video0 -fps 30
June 11th, 2010 at 7:18 pm
This work on my HP Webcam 101 (notebook) on Suse 11.2 (Linux suse112 2.6.31.12-0.2-default #1 SMP 2010-03-16 21:25:39 +0100 i686 i686 i386 GNU/Linux)
But i must use v4l2, not v4l.
Linux Rocks!!