Video Devices – Manipulating /dev/video

devicesvideo

I'd like to take the video stream from /dev/video0, apply some effects or changes and make the result available on /dev/video1.

/dev/video0 —> Apply Effects —> /dev/video1

For example, mplayer tv:// -vo caca will display the output of /dev/video in ascii art. I would like to make that available on /dev/video1 so that I could send that through skype instead of my default webcam feed….

Any suggestions?

Best Answer

For sure. Here are two suggestions:

Behind the scenes CLI. Use V4L2VD to create a virtual video device such as /dev/videoVirt1 and pipe through mplayer for the effects. Even some similar examples in the notes.
Use a fat desktop program such as webcamstudio to create the pipes and do your skype/broadcast wonders - still with mplayer for the ascii effect

Good Luck!

Related Solutions

Ssh – pipe /dev/video over ssh

Something like:

dd if=/dev/video0 | mplayer tv://device=/dev/stdin

works for me (SOA#1) locally. So does:

ssh localhost dd if=/dev/video0 | mplayer tv://device=/dev/stdin

As well as

mkfifo test
dd if=/dev/video0 of=test &
mplayer tv://device=test

Hence:

Try without named pipe
Check bandwidth

Also - how does in not work (display black screen, complains about unknown device etc.)?

Linux – How to get mplayer to play from stdin

You need to give it some cache when playing from stdin

cat /dev/video1 | mplayer -cache 1024 -

Without that cache option you'll get the error "Seek failed Cannot seek backward in linear streams"

Best Answer

Related Solutions

Ssh – pipe /dev/video over ssh

Linux – How to get mplayer to play from stdin

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