Re: Petition n900 as webcam
 

I've created a tiny set of simple scripts that establishes a live audio/video stream over any available network connection to a given host. No usb connection needed.
They're availabe here. A brief explanation of what which file do:

aplay-net.sh - client-side (reciever) script that listens to a certain port and plays incoming audio.
arecord-net.sh - server-side (n900) script that connects to a given ip/port and streams microphone audio.

gstreamer.sh - client-side (reciever) script that listens to a given port and plays the incoming video with vlc.
gstreamer_server.sh - server-side (n900) script that connects to a given ip/port and streams camera video.
gstreamer.spd - client-side (reciever) vlc configuration file. You have to manually edit this to suit your settings. My file has "127.0.0.1" as the ip, and "31337" as the port, replace these values.

Re: Petition n900 as webcam
 

These scripts are a nice base to integrate into a simple python server with very basic frontend (start/stop, clickable VLC config :-)

Re: Petition n900 as webcam
 

It would be very useful to be able to make the application !! Some are encouraged to try something?

Re: Petition n900 as webcam
 

Still quite a gap to using this stream with MSN or Skype?

Re: Petition n900 as webcam
 

i think the maine use for the 'webcam' here imo would be best used for stuff like msn or aim and video calls and or skype vid calls. that would definitely be used the most. other things it could be used for is like ustream or some kind of live feed with a low quality option since the higher the quality the longer the delay i have noticed just with qik.

-MASTER

Re: Petition n900 as webcam
 

Someone can create the application then?

Re: Petition n900 as webcam
 

There is an opensource version called smartcam for s60. Its works flawlessly for bluetooth and wifi.

Anyone familar with Symbian might be able to redo the transmission protocol for linux and keep the windows binary.

http://sourceforge.net/projects/smartcam/files/

http://www.intomobile.com/2007/09/27...ss-webcam.html

Re: Petition n900 as webcam
 

Well bugelrex! someone who can do that? : D

Re: Petition n900 as webcam
 

there is already a project for the N800. it based on a apache port (for the device) and another lib.

why reinvent the wheel twice and not reuse the existing projects?

Re: Petition n900 as webcam
 

Does this Petitioning thing really works or has any petition out there really get thru and become real.?? or just another thread.. Hmmm!

Re: Petition n900 as webcam
 

i really loved mobiola on my n95 8gb..... i used it a lot, now i use my n95 as a security camera :) its great, id love this on my n900 as well! +1

Re: Petition n900 as webcam
 

I have it installed on my N800, it's called "LiveCast". It may be at the Ovi Store for N900.

Attachment 8907

Re: Petition n900 as webcam
 

LiveCast turns your NIT into an IP video camera with sound. It will save a file either locally on your NIT on on a server at LiveCast.

Re: Petition n900 as webcam
 

QiK ? Can do live streaming to web.... not quite but also good :)

Re: Petition n900 as webcam
 

Hy,
I'm the author of SmartCam, it's quite easy to port SmartCam to Maemo, just encode each frame with IJG JPEG and send it over the socket (bt or tcp). Anyone with an N900 on their hands should give it a try or borrow me yours !! RIGHT :)

Re: Petition n900 as webcam
 

You can port your program to maemo?

Re: Petition n900 as webcam
 

Yes, I'd love to port it, I just need a device.

Re: Petition n900 as webcam
 

This would be a great application for N900!

Re: Petition n900 as webcam
 

The thread "Use N800 webcam as a Linux Desktop webcam" may be of interest to desktop Linux users following this topic. The method used with the N8x0 there appears likely to be close to what's needed for the N900.

Re: [Maemo 5] Camera stream from N900 to PC? (N900 as webcam)
 

The thread "Petition n900 as webcam" with twenty-seven posts has been merged into this thread.

Re: Petition n900 as webcam
 

Could this be a use of one of the returned Summit devices? - Sorry if this has already been discussed - but i'm assuming Quim etc could clarify if it is at all possible to extend a loan to a developer? :D

Re: [Maemo 5] Camera stream from N900 to PC? (N900 as webcam)
 

I don't understand why anyone want to install anything on the pc. Hate those idiotic bulky synchronization software like itunes or nokia pc suite, which do very little but garbage every inch of your system, esp. under Windows.
And now you talking actually new drivers and even more software!!

Why not go the orthodox way? All we need to do is setup a streaming jpeg/mjpeg server on the N900. The server should grab images from the camera and mic and stream them as mjpeg (or simply put as jpegs).
Then, on the PC you just use your video programme of choice, specifying the address of the remote camera (like, http://n900-ip/stream:port or http://n900-ip/cam.jpg) and you're done. A lot of IM and Surveillance programmes support remote cameras.
This will make the project fine and platform-independent.

If you want it wired, then you just mount n900 as NIC under Win or Linux, the same way as for wired SSH over usb.

Re: [Maemo 5] Camera stream from N900 to PC? (N900 as webcam)
 

Anyone achived to make an easy to use application for windows to use the n900 as a wireless webcam?

I love this phone, but it looks like its soo difficult to develop apps for maemo 5

Re: [Maemo 5] Camera stream from N900 to PC? (N900 as webcam)
 

flumotion in extras-devel will let you create an http stream from your webcam. The one in extras-devel currently only supports ogg/theora/vorbis streaming but I will be putting one later in the week that does webm/vp8/vorbis and h264/aac/flv.

An example for now (note n900 cpu may be too slow really to do theora encoding):

flumotion-launch pipeline-producer pipeline=v4l2camsrc device=/dev/video1 ! theora-encoder ! ogg-muxer ! http-streamer port=8800 mount-point=/webcam.ogg

Please note that software in extras-devel is installed at your own risk!

Re: [Maemo 5] Camera stream from N900 to PC? (N900 as webcam)
 

are you planning to do a nice UI for this? Do you need help?

Re: [Maemo 5] Camera stream from N900 to PC? (N900 as webcam)
 

There is a nice UI for this, look at: flumotion-admin you can also run this. The only issues are the assistant will not be able to work with the webcam on the n900, that I plan to fix soon.

Re: Petition n900 as webcam
 

Server down? Any chance of an alternate?

HA

Re: [Maemo 5] Camera stream from N900 to PC? (N900 as webcam)
 

any new news?

Re: [Maemo 5] Camera stream from N900 to PC? (N900 as webcam)
 

Anyone tried this yet?

http://www.webcamxp.com

This tool claims to be able to read input from 'IP cameras' (using RTSP/MPEG4 or (M)JPEG) and present it as a DirectShow filter/virtual capture device.

The last bit is important, since most Windows applications that use video (like MSN etc) can (only) get their input from a DirectShow device.

Matching the output of the N900 to the capabilities of this tool should be easy with Gstreamer/VLC/... (I.e.: have gstreamer/vlc/... stream the camera images over rtsp).

It's definitely not opensource, but it seems a free version for personal use is available.
I'm just not really sure yet if it's legit :p

I sure would like to test it out during my VJ gig tonight, but won't risk destroying my XP install with possible spyware :-D
(I really have to start looking into Linux VJ tools)

Re: [Maemo 5] Camera stream from N900 to PC? (N900 as webcam)
 

I installed VLC succesfully from here: http://www.remlab.net/files/vlc/fremantle/

And I tried getting it to stream to my PC using many different mediums and codecs but I'm not having much success. I can't even get to open the stream on VLC on my PC.

Anyone here who had any success in streaming over RTSP with VLC?

Re: Petition n900 as webcam
 

Hi mate,

I might give that a go... I've only ever done minimal media programming in the past though...

As a starting point, could you confirm if my interpretation of what needs to happen is correct:

1) capture image on n900
2) encode image as a .jpg file
3) send the binary file data to the port SmartCam is listening on

does any EOF or BOF data need to be sent to SmartCam between frames?

Re: [Maemo 5] Camera stream from N900 to PC? (N900 as webcam)
 

Here's an obtuse suggestion!

Install a webserver (lighttpd).
Setup webserver to serve "camera" folder.
Point browser to n900's ip address and webserver port.

Probably a bit insane, but then people do say "No one in their right mind would right it like that" when they see my code!

Re: [Maemo 5] Camera stream from N900 to PC? (N900 as webcam)
 

Haha! I'm glad your not writing an entire OS then! ;-)

As an update for everyone... I installed smartcam on my pc and tried following the instructions earlier which was to send jpegs to the server.

This didn't work, so I looked into it a bit more and it states that the system implemented the moving protocol. Reading into that the following is stated:

1) Connect
2) Server sends a small handshake
3) Client does a small reply
4) Client sends data constructed as follows:

byte
00 to 01: packet type
01 to 05: payload size (file data + 4 byte timestamp)
05 to 09: timestamp
09 to XX: file data

Unfortunately SmartCam doesn't seem to be initiating any handshake with the client so I assume it doesn't following the movino protocol 100%.

Also unfortunately, my N95 is broken so I can't get a packet sniffer going to see where I'm going wrong...

Could anyone else enlighten me on how the SmartCam client and server communicate?

Cheers,

Dan

Re: [Maemo 5] Camera stream from N900 to PC? (N900 as webcam)
 

Hello,

I'm not an expert by all means on all of this. But my aim is to try to get my N900 video camera streaming to my laptop and defined as a dev/video device on my linux box so i can use it with video chat.

Now after some research I tried 2 ways to achieve this but I hit deadends:

- I tried to stream an Rtp stream (using gst-launch) to my laptop and catch it using Mencode (saving it to dev/device0). The use of this method needs a video loopback device to be installed. Something like AVLD.

- Another thing I tried is sending a stream (using gst-launch) to my laptop and catching it with also a gst-launch command but this time i tried to use v4l2sink device=dev/device0.

I don't know if this is a bug or not, but I'm way too tired to fiddle with this some more (it's been 5 hrs :( )

Anyway if any of you peeps would like more info on what i tried to do, do ask :) Hope this helps!

Best Regards,

Karimko

Re: [Maemo 5] Camera stream from N900 to PC? (N900 as webcam)
 

Why is no one interested in a "webcam" over USB? I feel that should be incorporated regardless. Utilise the N900 5Mp as a camera over USB for use with Skype etc.

Re: [Maemo 5] Camera stream from N900 to PC? (N900 as webcam)
 

Hi,
the fact is we do, but we haven't found a proper way to make use of this usefull function.
I also used Mobila Webcam to connect N95 to PC via bluetooth, wifi or USB. I miss this function so much when I move on to N900.

Re: [Maemo 5] Camera stream from N900 to PC? (N900 as webcam)
 

Both the front and back cameras are V4L2 devices, and so VLC should be able stream from /dev/video0 or /dev/video1 (as should gstreamer, which is what the original poster was using). If anyone wants to share scripts, or has copies of the original poster's scripts, I can host them on qole.org for you...

EDIT: I think flumotion is probably a great way to get things working through gstreamer. I look forward to more encoding formats.

Re: [Maemo 5] Camera stream from N900 to PC? (N900 as webcam)
 

Setup LAN over USB and you should be able to use the same techniques already mentioned here for streaming over WiFi

Re: [Maemo 5] Camera stream from N900 to PC? (N900 as webcam)
 

The problem is that the techniques mentioned for streaming over WiFi are good in theory but don't seem to work in practice!

(I would be delighted to be proven wrong however...)

Re: [Maemo 5] Camera stream from N900 to PC? (N900 as webcam)
 

I was able to stream via WiFi to my PC in Linux..
It's relatively easy..