OctoStreamer

These scripts stream the webcam feed to mjpg. This format is used by OctoPrint/ OctoPi. Its unique feature is, that is switches on a GPIO before sending the stream or a snapshot. The pin is switched off, when no one is watching.

Features

• Provide stream and snapshot of your camera
• Automatically switch on and off your LED lights when someone is watching stream
• Manually switch on/off leds wie webinterface

Instructions

• Activate server: Uncomment the las lines in app.py (and set the port!)

  # if __name__ == '__main__':
  #     app.run(host='0.0.0.0', threaded=True, port=3000)
  

  Note: The original author says, this should not be used for production. I do not know enough about flask what would be correct. Please tell me.

• Change the pin number in config.json (BCM notation)

• Install requirements.txt

v4l2

I recommend usage of the v4l2 camera. It showed best performance on raspi. For this you need to install python-v4l2capture. I installed it from source.

Run the program with:

CAMERA=v4l2 python3 app.py

If you get an error message

OSError: [Errno 16] Device or resource busy

you are probably already running a stream. If you are on OctoPi with you can stop the preinstalled mjpg-streamer.

sudo systemctl stop webcamd

Run at startup (as service)

Remove the octopi included mjpg webcamd.service

• sudo systemctl stop webcamd
• sudo systemctl disable webcamd
• Backup: sudo mv /etc/systemd/system/webcamd.service /home/pi/mjpg-streamer/

Install new service (this asumes you cloned to ~/OctoStreamer, adjust paths and webcamd.service otherwise)

• sudo ln -s -T /home/pi/OctoStreamer/webcamd.service /etc/systemd/system/webcamd.service
• sudo systemctl daemon-reload
• sudo systemctl enable webcamd
• sudo systemctl start webcamd.service

Test

• Go to http://localhost: in your browser. In Config, it should show your pin from config.json. LES state should be 0.
• Click on /led_on. State should switch to 1.
• Click on /led_off. State should switch to 0.
• Open /snapshot in new browser window. State should switch to 1 in first window and switch back after ~10s.
• Open /video_feed in new browser window. State should switch to 1 in first window. It will switch back 10s after you close the stream window.
• If your LED is not turned on in you snapshot, your LED is to slow. Increase shapshot_delay in config.json, restart and try again.

Orginal code by

Flask Video Streaming Revisited.