CSI camera

Tested with RasPi Cam V2 which connects to the MIPI CSI-2 interface on connector J3.

Installation and Configuration

Power off and connect camera module connect to CSI connector.

When (re-)booting, config.txt must contain a line

start_x=1

otherwise, the camera cannot be used and you get a ENOMEM error.

raspistill and raspivid

These tools are RasPi specific and closer to the hardware.

record still image

raspistill -o raspistill.jpg
file raspistill.jpg

record H.264 video

raspivid -o raspivid.h264
file raspivid.h264

Many options are possible, like sending the stream to stdout and pipe it to gstreamer or nc ("netcat").

video for linux (v4l2) device driver

modprobe bcm2835-v4l2

Now, the device /dev/video0 can be used.

print device info

v4l2-ctl --device=0 --all

check supported video formats

v4l2-ctl --list-formats-ext

enable/disable preview

v4l2-ctl --overlay=1
v4l2-ctl --overlay=0

record MJPEG file

v4l2-ctl --set-fmt-video=width=2592,height=1944,pixelformat=MJPEG
v4l2-ctl --stream-mmap=3 --stream-count=1 --stream-to=testfile.jpg

test video frame rate

H.264 640x480 @ 90 fps, see https://www.raspberrypi.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=43&t=142536

v4l2-ctl -p 90
v4l2-ctl --set-ctrl video_bitrate=10000000
v4l2-ctl --set-fmt-video=width=640,height=480,pixelformat=H264
v4l2-ctl --stream-mmap=3 --stream-count=1000 --stream-to=/dev/null

Finally, the driver could also be removed:

modprobe -r bcm2835-v4l2

gstreamer

gstreamer could be used with raspivid as video source (cf. https://www.raspberrypi.org/forums/viewtopic.php?t=49278&p=664616), but this would be a RasPi specific solution. So we prefer using gstreamer with a V4l2 video source.

uv4l

Closed source - neither recommended, nor tested. Claims to support WebRTC https://www.linux-projects.org/uv4l/

cvlc

this is a command line version of VideoLAN vlc video player, the swiss army knive among video players. Can also be used to send RTSP stream.

using a USB camera (webcam) instead of CSI camera

USB has a device class for webcams: UVC UVC support is included in the RasPi image and works plug-and-play.

Tested with Microsoft LifeCam Studio webcam, when V4L2 driver for CSI camera was also loaded

Connect webcam to USB, check kernel log:

root@raspberrypi3:~# dmesg | tail
[ 4016.669518] usb 1-1.4: New USB device found, idVendor=045e, idProduct=0772
[ 4016.673681] usb 1-1.4: New USB device strings: Mfr=1, Product=2, SerialNumber=0
[ 4016.677794] usb 1-1.4: Product: Microsoft\xffffffc2\xffffffae LifeCam Studio(TM)
[ 4016.681753] usb 1-1.4: Manufacturer: Microsoft
[ 4016.694515] hid-generic 0003:045E:0772.0001: hiddev0,hidraw0: USB HID v1.01 Device [Microsoft Microsoft\xffffffc2\xffffffae LifeCam Studio(TM)] on usb-3f980000.usb-1.4/input4
[ 4016.724801] uvcvideo: Found UVC 1.00 device Microsoft\xffffffc2\xffffffae LifeCam Studio(TM) (045e:0772)
[ 4016.788227] input: Microsoft\xffffffc2\xffffffae LifeCam Studio(TM) as /devices/platform/soc/3f980000.usb/usb1/1-1/1-1.4/1-1.4:1.0/input/input0
[ 4016.796404] usbcore: registered new interface driver uvcvideo
[ 4016.800554] USB Video Class driver (1.1.1)
[ 4017.154916] usbcore: registered new interface driver snd-usb-audio

A new video device was created: /dev/video1. This video device works similar to the CSI cam /dev/video0, but there will be differences because different cameras might handle different image sizes, pixel formats, etc.. There may even be differences between different UVC cams, good luck!