I have been trying to get a H264 stream from a H264 usb webcam working but I am not making much progress so I'm hoping someone knows FFMPEG better than me!
There are dozens of questions/answers on SO but none solve my problem.
In short, I get a very pixelated (or sometimes mostly green) screen. I am using VLC to test the stream which is coming via an RTSP server. I am using FFMPEG to copy the webcam stream to the local RTSP server.
The webcam also supports YUYV which I can get working - it is just the h264 stream causing me problems.
So this is how the device is presented:
H264 USB Camera: USB Camera (usb-20980000.usb-1):
/dev/video0
/dev/video1
/dev/video2
/dev/video3
/dev/video0 is the YUYV and MPEG stream /dev/video2 is the h264 stream that has the following capabilities:
ioctl: VIDIOC_ENUM_FMT
Type: Video Capture
[0]: 'H264' (H.264, compressed)
Size: Discrete 1920x1080
Interval: Discrete 0.033s (30.000 fps)
Interval: Discrete 0.040s (25.000 fps)
Interval: Discrete 0.067s (15.000 fps)
Interval: Discrete 0.033s (30.000 fps)
Interval: Discrete 0.040s (25.000 fps)
Interval: Discrete 0.067s (15.000 fps)
Size: Discrete 1280x720
Interval: Discrete 0.033s (30.000 fps)
Interval: Discrete 0.040s (25.000 fps)
Interval: Discrete 0.067s (15.000 fps)
Size: Discrete 800x600
Interval: Discrete 0.033s (30.000 fps)
Interval: Discrete 0.040s (25.000 fps)
Interval: Discrete 0.067s (15.000 fps)
Size: Discrete 640x480
Interval: Discrete 0.033s (30.000 fps)
Interval: Discrete 0.040s (25.000 fps)
Interval: Discrete 0.067s (15.000 fps)
Size: Discrete 640x360
Interval: Discrete 0.033s (30.000 fps)
Interval: Discrete 0.040s (25.000 fps)
Interval: Discrete 0.067s (15.000 fps)
Size: Discrete 352x288
Interval: Discrete 0.033s (30.000 fps)
Interval: Discrete 0.040s (25.000 fps)
Interval: Discrete 0.067s (15.000 fps)
Size: Discrete 320x240
Interval: Discrete 0.033s (30.000 fps)
Interval: Discrete 0.040s (25.000 fps)
Interval: Discrete 0.067s (15.000 fps)
Size: Discrete 1920x1080
Interval: Discrete 0.033s (30.000 fps)
Interval: Discrete 0.040s (25.000 fps)
Interval: Discrete 0.067s (15.000 fps)
Interval: Discrete 0.033s (30.000 fps)
Interval: Discrete 0.040s (25.000 fps)
Interval: Discrete 0.067s (15.000 fps)
I have tried various resolutions, the smaller giving slightly less pixelated images but none are usable and definitely dont compare to the YUYV high resolution results.
This (YUYV) command works:
ffmpeg -input_format yuyv422 -f video4linux2 -s 1280x720 -r 10 -i /dev/video0 -c:v h264_omx -r 10 -b:v 2M -an -f rtsp rtsp://localhost:80/live/stream
These two h264 options dont work:
ffmpeg -input_format h264 -f video4linux2 -video_size 1920x1080 -framerate 30 -i /dev/video0 -c:v copy -an -f rtsp rtsp://localhost:80/live/stream
ffmpeg -re -i /dev/video2 -video_size 800x600 -framerate 15 -pix_fmt yuv420p -tune zerolatency -c:v copy -an -f rtsp rtsp://localhost:80/live/stream
For that last command the FFMPEG output looks like this:
ffmpeg version git-2020-08-07-6fdf3cc Copyright (c) 2000-2020 the FFmpeg developers
built with gcc 8 (Raspbian 8.3.0-6+rpi1)
configuration: --extra-ldflags=-latomic --arch=armel --target-os=linux --enable-gpl --enable-omx --enable-omx-rpi --enable-nonfree --enable-libfreetype --enable-libx264 --enable-libmp3lame --enable-mmal --enable-indev=alsa --enable-outdev=alsa
libavutil 56. 58.100 / 56. 58.100
libavcodec 58.100.100 / 58.100.100
libavformat 58. 50.100 / 58. 50.100
libavdevice 58. 11.101 / 58. 11.101
libavfilter 7. 87.100 / 7. 87.100
libswscale 5. 8.100 / 5. 8.100
libswresample 3. 8.100 / 3. 8.100
libpostproc 55. 8.100 / 55. 8.100
Input #0, video4linux2,v4l2, from '/dev/video2':
Duration: N/A, start: 1353.265049, bitrate: N/A
Stream #0:0: Video: h264 (Main), yuv420p(progressive), 1920x1080, 30 fps, 30 tbr, 1000k tbn, 2000k tbc
[udp @ 0x38c29f0] attempted to set receive buffer to size 393216 but it only ended up set as 360448
[udp @ 0x38d7b50] attempted to set receive buffer to size 393216 but it only ended up set as 360448
Output #0, rtsp, to 'rtsp://localhost:80/live/stream':
Metadata:
encoder : Lavf58.50.100
Stream #0:0: Video: h264 (Main), yuv420p(progressive), 1920x1080, q=2-31, 30 fps, 30 tbr, 90k tbn, 1000k tbc
Stream mapping:
Stream #0:0 -> #0:0 (copy)
Press [q] to stop, [?] for help
[rtsp @ 0x38fd890] Timestamps are unset in a packet for stream 0. This is deprecated and will stop working in the future. Fix your code to set the timestamps properly
[rtsp @ 0x38fd890] Non-monotonous DTS in output stream 0:0; previous: 0, current: 0; changing to 1. This may result in incorrect timestamps in the output file.
frame= 348 fps= 18 q=-1.0 size=N/A time=00:00:21.03 bitrate=N/A speed=1.09x
The issue looks like it is bandwidth related or the lack of processing power in the device being used BUT the YUYV works at a high resolution and (taking a completely different approach i.e. not using FFMPEG) I can get a very decent MPEG stream working on the same device.
So any FFMPEG experts out there who can help me with getting the correct parameters for a h264 stream?
