📷 raspi-live-libcamera is a command-line application that streams video from the Raspberry Pi Camera module using the new libcamera software to the web. It also now includes CORS functionality for the HTTP server.
This was forked and updated from an older version by https://github.com/jaredpetersen in which the older version used the raspivid application, which is now deprecated.
raspi-live-libcamera streams video from the Raspberry Pi Camera Module to the web
For more information visit https://github.com/amd940/raspi-live-libcamera
Usage:
raspi-live-libcamera [command]
Available Commands:
hls Stream video using HLS
dash Stream video using DASH
help Help about any command
Flags:
--debug enable debug logging
--fps int video framerate (default 30)
--height int video height (default 720)
-h, --help help for raspilive
--horizontal-flip horizontally flip video
-v, --version version for raspilive
--vertical-flip vertically flip video
--width int video width (default 1280)
Use "raspi-live-libcamera [command] --help" for more information about a command.
The hls command muxes the video stream into the HLS video
streaming format and serves the produced content by starting a static file server.
If you're not familiar with HLS, the technology works by splitting the video stream into small, consumable segments. These segments are arranged into a constantly updating playlist of files. Clients periodically read these playlists, download the listed videos, and queue up the segments to produce a seamless playback experience. Twitch uses it to distribute streaming video to all of its viewers.
Stream video using HLS
Usage:
raspi-live-libcamera hls [flags]
Flags:
--port int static file server port
--directory string static file server directory
--tls-cert string static file server TLS certificate
--tls-key string static file server TLS key
--segment-type string format of the video segments (valid ["mpegts", "fmp4"], default "mpegts")
--segment-time int target segment duration in seconds (default 2)
--playlist-size int maximum number of playlist entries (default 10)
--storage-size int maximum number of unreferenced segments to keep on disk before removal (default 1)
--cors string allow cross domain HTTP requests, https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTTP/CORS (default "", supports * wildcard (e.g. `--cors "*"`))
-h, --help help for hls
Global Flags:
--debug enable debug logging
--fps int video framerate (default 30)
--height int video height (default 720)
--horizontal-flip horizontally flip video
--vertical-flip vertically flip video
--width int video width (default 1280)
The dash command muxes the video stream into the
DASH video streaming format and serves the
produced content by starting a static file server.
DASH effectively utilizes the same mechanism for streaming video as HLS. The video is split into small segments and listed in a changing playlist file. Clients download the playlist and the videos listed in it to piece the video together seamlessly.
Stream video using DASH
Usage:
raspi-live-libcamera dash [flags]
Flags:
--port int static file server port
--directory string static file server directory
--tls-cert string static file server TLS certificate
--tls-key string static file server TLS key
--segment-time int target segment duration in seconds (default 2)
--playlist-size int maximum number of playlist entries (default 10)
--storage-size int maximum number of unreferenced segments to keep on disk before removal (default 1)
--cors string allow cross domain HTTP requests, https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTTP/CORS (default "", supports * wildcard (e.g. `--cors "*"`))
-h, --help help for dash
Global Flags:
--debug enable debug logging
--fps int video framerate (default 30)
--height int video height (default 720)
--horizontal-flip horizontally flip video
--vertical-flip vertically flip video
--width int video width (default 1280)
HLS and DASH are inherently latent streaming technologies. However, you can still produce some lower latency video streams.
The general recommendations seem to be:
- Reduce the segment size
- Increase the number of segments in the playlist to build up a buffer
Experiment with the flags and see what seems to work best for your Pi. We try to provide "sane" defaults but Raspberry Pis are computationally diverse so you may find better performance with some tweaking.
Additionally, you may find that the SD card on the Raspberry Pi is a limitation. Fast disk read/writes are important and SD cards can only perform so many in their lifetime. For better performance and longevity, you may consider setting up a RAM drive so that the files are stored in memory instead.
raspi-live-libcamera uses libcamera to operate the
Raspberry Pi Camera Module (Note: the documentation needs to be updated, rpicam-* should instead be libcamera-*). This is already available on the Raspbian operating system and can be enabled via
raspi-config.
raspi-live-libcamera also uses Ffmpeg, a prominent video conversion command line utility, to process the streaming video that the Raspberry Pi Camera Module outputs. Version 4.0 or higher is required.
sudo apt-get install ffmpegDownload the latest version of raspi-live-libcamera from the Releases page. All of the release binaries are compiled for ARM 6 and are compatible with Raspberry Pi.