FFMpeg ffserver

ffserver

Running ffserver

Note: this page is not complete. I got errors on my laptop as well as my desktop. This page will be completed once those are fixed.

In this section, we'll setup ffserver with Ubuntu 13.04. Then, do streaming via localhost.

First, we need to start the server. To start it, we need ffserver.conf. But for now, we can just copy it from http://ffmpeg.org/sample.html, and put it unser /etc.

Once we create a valid config file, we can start ffserver:

$ ffserver -f /etc/ffserver.conf &
ffserver version git-2013-10-30-e1848aa Copyright (c) 2000-2013 the FFmpeg developers
  built on Oct 29 2013 19:55:56 with gcc 4.8 (Ubuntu/Linaro 4.8.1-10ubuntu8)
  configuration: --prefix=/home/khong/ffmpeg_build --extra-cflags=-I/home/khong/ffmpeg_build/include --extra-ldflags=-L/home/khong/ffmpeg_build/lib --bindir=/home/khong/bin --extra-libs=-ldl --enable-gpl --enable-libass --enable-libfdk-aac --enable-libmp3lame --enable-libopus --enable-libtheora --enable-libvorbis --enable-libvpx --enable-libx264 --enable-nonfree --enable-x11grab
  libavutil      52. 48.100 / 52. 48.100
  libavcodec     55. 39.100 / 55. 39.100
  libavformat    55. 19.104 / 55. 19.104
  libavdevice    55.  5.100 / 55.  5.100
  libavfilter     3. 90.100 /  3. 90.100
  libswscale      2.  5.101 /  2.  5.101
  libswresample   0. 17.104 /  0. 17.104
  libpostproc    52.  3.100 / 52.  3.100
Tue Oct 29 20:06:13 2013 FFserver started.

Connecting input sources

Once our ffserver is up and running, it's time to connect input sources to it. Without input sources, our ffserver is not going to broadcast anything to the outside world and will be pretty much useless. So, let's see how we can connect input sources to ffserver. The simplest way is to use the ffmpeg tool.

$ ffmpeg \
	-f v4l2 -s 320x240 -r 25 -i /dev/video0 \
	-f alsa -ac 1 -i hw:0 \
	http://localhost:8090/feed1.ffm

Initially, I got the following error:

ffmpeg version git-2013-10-30-e1848aa Copyright (c) 2000-2013 the FFmpeg developers
  built on Oct 29 2013 19:55:56 with gcc 4.8 (Ubuntu/Linaro 4.8.1-10ubuntu8)
  configuration: --prefix=/home/khong/ffmpeg_build --extra-cflags=-I/home/khong/ffmpeg_build/include --extra-ldflags=-L/home/khong/ffmpeg_build/lib --bindir=/home/khong/bin --extra-libs=-ldl --enable-gpl --enable-libass --enable-libfdk-aac --enable-libmp3lame --enable-libopus --enable-libtheora --enable-libvorbis --enable-libvpx --enable-libx264 --enable-nonfree --enable-x11grab
  libavutil      52. 48.100 / 52. 48.100
  libavcodec     55. 39.100 / 55. 39.100
  libavformat    55. 19.104 / 55. 19.104
  libavdevice    55.  5.100 / 55.  5.100
  libavfilter     3. 90.100 /  3. 90.100
  libswscale      2.  5.101 /  2.  5.101
  libswresample   0. 17.104 /  0. 17.104
  libpostproc    52.  3.100 / 52.  3.100
[video4linux2,v4l2 @ 0x1ab42e0] The driver changed the time per frame from 1/25 to 1/30
Input #0, video4linux2,v4l2, from '/dev/video0':
  Duration: N/A, start: 13686.146927, bitrate: 36864 kb/s
    Stream #0:0: Video: rawvideo (YUY2 / 0x32595559), yuyv422, 320x240, 36864 kb/s, 30 fps, 30 tbr, 1000k tbn, 1000k tbc
[alsa @ 0x1ab5e60] cannot open audio device hw:0 (No such file or directory)
hw:0: Input/output error

If I use arecord, aplay, and amixer:

$ arecord -l
**** List of CAPTURE Hardware Devices ****
card 1: Generic_1 [HD-Audio Generic], device 0: ALC269VC Analog [ALC269VC Analog]
  Subdevices: 0/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0

$ aplay -l
**** List of PLAYBACK Hardware Devices ****
card 0: Generic [HD-Audio Generic], device 3: HDMI 0 [HDMI 0]
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 1: Generic_1 [HD-Audio Generic], device 0: ALC269VC Analog [ALC269VC Analog]
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0

$ amixer
Simple mixer control 'IEC958',0
  Capabilities: pswitch pswitch-joined
  Playback channels: Mono
  Mono: Playback [on]

An ALSA identifier has the syntax:

hw:CARD[,DEV[,SUBDEV]]

where the DEV and SUBDEV components are optional.

To capture with ffmpeg from an ALSA device with card id 0 or 1:

$ ffmpeg -f alsa -i hw: alsaout.wav
...
[alsa @ 0x27f0980] cannot open audio device hw:0 (No such file or directory)
hw:0: Input/output error


$ ffmpeg -f alsa -i hw:1 alsaout.wav
...
[alsa @ 0x356b980] cannot open audio device hw:1 (Device or resource busy)
hw:1: Input/output error

To see the list of cards currently recognized by our system check the files "/proc/asound/cards" and "/proc/asound/devices":

$ cd /proc/asound/
$ ls
card0  card1  cards  devices  Generic  Generic_1  hwdep  modules  pcm  seq  timers  version
$ cd card0
$ ls
codec#0  eld#0.0  id  pcm3p
$ cd ../card1
$ ls
codec#0  id  pcm0c  pcm0p
$ cd ../Generic
$ ls
codec#0  eld#0.0  id  pcm3p
$ cd ../Generic_1
$ ls
codec#0  id  pcm0c  pcm0p