[MPlayer-users] mplayer as a frame grabber for a webcam? (I know, I know, but listen for a minute . . )

[Struan Bartlett]

What webcam are you using?

I've a Philips PCVC740K "TOUCam Pro" and mplayer and mencoder work fine 
with it, using a command like:

mencoder -tv 
on:driver=v4l:width=640:height=480:outfmt=i420:forceaudio:adevice=/dev/dsp0 
-vc rawi420 -oac pcm -ovc rawrgb -o clock.avi

or

mencoder -tv 
on:driver=v4l:width=640:height=480:outfmt=i420:forceaudio:adevice=/dev/dsp0 
-vc rawi420 -oac mp3lame -lameopts cbr:br=64:vol=5 -ovc lavc -lavcopts 
vcodec=mpeg4:vbitrate=1024:vhq:vqmin=2:vlelim=-4:vcelim=9:lumi_mask=0.05:dark_mask=0.01 
-o clock.avi

or

mplayer -tv on:driver=v4l:width=640:height=480:outfmt=i420 -vc rawi420 
-vo xv

Perhaps it's your -tv arguments that are causing problems.

Eric Jorgensen wrote:

>[Automatic answer: RTFM (read DOCS, FAQ), also read DOCS/bugreports.html]
>
>	I recently got fed up with the miniature system i'd been using to drive my
>webcam with win95 and an old parallel port capture dongle, decided to use a
>bt878 card in a linux box and a long video cable instead. 
>
>	Of course, that parallel port capture device had deinterlacing in hardware (or
>at least software on a microcontroller in the box), so i can nolonger use a full
>640x480 frame. 
>
>	I'd like to use a bigger frame, because it's my fishtank webcam. You can see it
>for yourself at http://we.areb.org/fishcam 
>
>	If i capture a 640x480 frame from the bttv device, I get a badly interlaced
>frame. so I'm stuck with 320x240 until i figure out how to deinterlace a jpg
>captured from the bt878. 
>
>	It struck me that mplayer has tv card support, and jpeg output support, and of
>course deinterlacing support. But, when i try: 
>
>mplayer -tv on:driver=v4l:input=1:norm=ntsc -vo jpeg -jpeg \
>quality=75:optimize:progressive:outdir=/tmp -vop pp=lb -frames 1
>
>	Nothing happens. mplayer parses the config files and exits. As near as i can
>tell no jpeg files are created anywhere. But i don't get an error either. 
>
>mplayer -tv on:driver=v4l:input=1:norm=ntsc -vop pp=lb -vo aa -frames 1 
>
>	displays one ascii frame and exits. So I think I'm on the right track, but
>something is missing. 
>
>	It would also be neat if i could use mplayer to save say three or four small
>frames at 2fps to an animated gif. Fish are more fun when you can watch them
>swim, after all. 
>
>	Anybody got any ideas? Functionality just isn't there, perhaps?
>
> - 
>
>_______________________________________________
>RTFM!!!  http://www.MPlayerHQ.hu/DOCS
>Search:  http://www.MPlayerHQ.hu/cgi-bin/htsearch
>http://mplayerhq.hu/mailman/listinfo/mplayer-users
>  
>


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