Best way to stream composite video feed (via usb input) across network

[danzig67]

Hello all,

 

Bit of a specific enquiry here, but bear with me, someone might have a suggestion.

 

 

In work we have a bird box in one of the trees outside. A few years back someone installed a video camera in it and ran a yellow composite cable from the box, across the path and into the nearest room with a projector. The cable goes directly into the projector and the 'action' can be viewed live on the big screen in there.

 

 

However, this isn't enough, apparently! What is now required is to stream the feed throughout the building and make it accessible in our digital signage.

 

To do this I knew I have to get it onto a computer of sorts, to start with. I got a hold of one of these usb composite devices thingys and can get the video feed up live on the laptop I installed the usb hardware on.

 

 

My next task is to find a way to broadcast it on the network. I use xibo for my digital signage. A feature of this allows for the embeddeding of html and, as such, Web streams. I know there is a way to do this using vlc, however, I'm having trouble getting it to pick up the composite device, and the embed code is difficult to get right.

 

I know its a bit of a long shot, but can anyone suggest a decent way to get my composite feed from the laptop to the Internet?

[Meldrew]

Might be a dead end, but I used to use software called webcam monitor to keep an eye on my dogs to see if they were barking during the day when I was out. It may well be able to detect your USB device and it does have a 'Broadcast live video on internet' option, but I never used that.

 

It has a free trial, so you could give it a go...

 

WebCam Monitor- Motion Detection Software - Deskshare

 

HTH,

 

Meldrew

[TLARWise]

You should be able to do this using VLC. I have done something similar with a tv signal using a USB tuner but the principal should be the same, I will try and dig out the instructions I used to set this up.

[mikeyd101]

another vote for vlc, I've used it before to stream video.

[squeeky]

if you have 15 or less computers you can use Unreal Media Server. I have used this for perfect picture quality on pretty much any capture device. You can also access the stream directly using mms in vlc. Its free for 15 clients Edited May 7, 2013 by squeeky

[JimmyTown]

Luckily we have a system in place that does live streaming and signage. If your place already has a system in place you can jump on the back of it may save you some time. Ours uses Flash Media Server so I was able to quickly set up a live stream of a science experiment with Flash Media Live encoder for a staff member, i'm sure it wouldnt have been too much problem to get it onto the signage screen.

[danzig67]

Thanks everyone.

 

I've tried to persist with VLC, as we use it throughout he organisation and I'm reasonably comfortable with it.

 

I've managed to get the following code to work:

 

 

This works when streaming video to xibo from VLC. All I have to try now is to get VLC to stream from my selected capture dervice.

 

Failing that I may look into Unreal Media

[danzig67]

Just a quick update and a plea for some further assistance, if I may...!

 

I can't for the life of me get VLC to play (never mind stream!) from my composite capture device.

 

I have the capture mode set to 'direct show' and the video device name allows me to slect the relevant device - in my case it's Conexant Polaris Video Capture.

 

But when I hit play I get the duration bar ticking away as if it is playing something, but on the screen nothing happens - its just sits there with the big orange traffic cone on the black background!

 

I know the usb card works as I can obtain live footage from the software that bundled with it.

 

Any ideas, or am i missing anything glaringly obvious?

[TLARWise]

I have had a play around with one of my capture cards and was able to get it working using the following proceedure:

Start VLC

Media > Stream

Click Capture Device Tab

Select Directshow, change default video and audio device name to name of USB capture device

Click Advanced Options

Tick Device Properties

Click Stream

Click Next

Change New Destination drop down to HTTP, click Add

Click Next

Click Stream

Tick VCR input, select PAL_B > OK

Defaults should be OK > OK

Defaults should be OK > OK

Change input drop down to Video Composite In

Click OK

 

I then used the following embedded code in Xibo:

[danzig67]

Thanks for that.

 

I shall give it a go this morning. At the moment, I'm using Directshow streaming of the desktop to get around it. As the picture quality of the video feed isn't great anyway, I'm not losing out too much by just streaming the live camera feed as a desktop stream.

 

Any ideas how to set the size of the broswer plugin?

 

Edit: Ignore that last part. height="500" width="500" placed before the paramname tags will work here.

 

Thanks again!

Edited May 8, 2013 by danzig67

[Hacksawbob]

Dare I mention windows media encoder? I run it on an old Xp box and it's dead simple to setup for live audio or video streaming, webcams as an input are supported as well. Users just need a user to click a created m3u shortcut which starts media player and bingo! A delightfully simple to use, powerful and free Microsoft product! (had to happen sooner or later!) How you get that stream onto your signage is another matter, but if it supports WMV/ media player that should not be a problem. Edited May 9, 2013 by Hacksawbob

[danzig67]

Thanks for the reply!

 

Windows products don't usually tend to cross my mind as a 'go to' solution. But this sounds like it might be useful - especially since the Xibo signage stuff handles wmv natively.

 

For the moment I finally have VLC up and running and doing its thing. I'm broadcasting the stream across our LAN via VLC and have embedded html code (as above) to get it working within my signage client.

 

What I would now like to do is take it one step further - I'd like to be able to use the same HTML embed code and make a page for our school website. This would allow visitors to the website to access the feed over the internet.

 

I know this is possible in VLC, essentially just taking the network stream and making it more widely available - for want of a better phrase. I just don't know how to get it there? Is there a simple way to do this? I'm guessing the fact that the school network is behind a proxy is going to make things a bit more complicated?

 

Anyone have any thoughts?

[JimmyTown]

You will more than likely hit some issues if you want the stream to reach people outside of the school network. VLC will be using a protocol (maybe rtp) to send the stream across the network and it will be using a specfic port. This port will need to be opened by your network administrator. It was the same for us using flash media server, port 1935 needed opening.

 

If you are able to get the stream to users at home then you may want to consider what quality you are recording at, lower bitrates will give you a better stream experience.

[danzig67]

I'm streaming via http at the moment on port 8080 - this is also the port our proxy uses, so I don't know what impact that will have. I don't know if it is possible to change the http port to something else e.g. one port either side of 8080, or I could always change to rtp and use port 1935 like you did.

 

The bitrate isn't a huge problem as the stream is low quality anyway (just a black and white feed from inside a birdbox, nothing too exciting!).

 

Any further advice welcome.

[JimmyTown]

I would use a different port and give it a go, if it can be made available through your external firewall

[Hacksawbob]

Personally I would use one of the push type snapshot up-loaders that sends a snapshot to a website every 10 seconds, surely good enough for outside viewing?

Now you just need some birds in the nest!

[danzig67]

Yeah something like this would be ideal!

 

Have you any recommendations?

 

I'll have you know that we currently have a blue tit and her 5 eggs in there! Not every day you get to sit at work and watch tits come and go!!!

 

[minature_hero]

Hello All,

 

I'm trying to set up the same thing - birdbox vlc stream to Xibo. I'm following the same process as in this thread but I can't seem to get the stream from the the PC (with the USB capture device running VLC) showing in a webpage activeX box. I'm not putting it into xibo yet, just a very simple webpage with html and body tags as well as the object code from this thread.

 

I can view the capture device and see the output of the camera in vlc, but when setting up the vlc http stream I just get the traffic cone displayed in the client webpage. Any ideas? I've tried it on win7 and XP.

 

Thanks for your help

[danzig67]

Hi,

 

Apologies for the delay in a reply, I've been on holiday the past couple of weeks.

 

I use the following HTML to successfully stream to a web browser on a client PC via http:

 

For Internet Explorer

 

 

For Chrome and Firefox

 

type='application/x-vlc-plugin'

pluginspage='http://www.videolan.org'

version='VideoLAN.VLCPlugin.2'

width='800'

height='600'

id='vlc'

loop='yes'

autoplay='yes'

target='http://:'>

 

 

You can then incorporate some HTML that detects the user's browser and then executes the relevant embed code.

 

I'd give this a go. If your stream is all set up correctly then this should stream to the browser using this code. Are you able to access the stream on the client's PC through VLC?

 

If you can't access the stream at the client at all, ensure the client has the latest version of VLC installed and that local addresses are being bypassed by the your proxy, if you are using one.

[minature_hero]

Thanks for your help,

 

That was the problem. I was using the IE code and then trying to view the test page I had made in Firefox. All sorted now.