Calin Crisan brings us this Raspberry Pi webcam tutorial (in Romanian but easily translated):
With a cheap web camera that connects to USB video streaming can be done in just a few easy steps, with a Raspberry PI . The simplicity of the solution comes from the streaming technology used effectively. Everything happens over HTTP , a protocol ubiquitous and extremely affordable nowadays.
Basically, the Raspberry PI running a mini web server that serves as a video information file M-JPG ( Motion Jpeg , more info here ). In short, an M-JPG is actually a set of images JPG you succeed just like the frames of a movie. The advantage of M-JPG -s is that it does not require plug-ins or browser extensions for rendering. A simple element HTML type IMG , with the desired size and source attribute set to M-JPG ‘s served will be sufficient to render in a web page.
The entire solution is based on the server MJPG-streamer whose page can be found here . The program was written by Tom Stöveken and licensed GPLv2. We have compiled and prepared a version of this program Raspberry PI.
Each Friday is PiDay here at Adafruit, be sure to check out our posts, tutorials and new Raspberry Pi related products. Have you tried the new “Adafruit Raspberry Pi Educational Linux Distro” ? It’s our tweaked distribution for teaching electronics using the Raspberry Pi. But wait, there’s more! Try our new Raspberry Pi WebIDE! The easiest way to learn programming on a Raspberry Pi.
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I just setup my Raspberry Pi as a webcam server using BobTech’s instructions. I’m using the Edimax EW-7811Un USB Adapter and a Creative Live! Cam Chat HD camera.
I used http://raspberrypi:8080/?action=snapshot, so it serves a single image instead of a stream and then I run a script to refresh the page.
Once it was set it up, I run it headless and use puTTY to connect to it.
I’m glad you enjoyed the tutorial.
Help me decide which HD camera to buy.
Please post a link with live stream using a HD camera or at least some snapshots. I want to replace the camera used for this tutorial (Logitech C210), so you can see a better image quality of my aquarium.