For the ManCadet, we built a couple of cheap streaming cameras to stream content to Youtube Live. You can see the quality of the output here.
To do this, we used Raspberry Pis with the camera module and “official” case. We stuck them to the wall with gaffer tape and positioned the camera module with blue-tak. For power, we used a 5m USB female to male connector, a standard 2amp usb charger and a 20cm micro usb cable. This gave us some flexibility in positioning the camera a significant distance from power sockets.
For software, we tried a couple of approaches. Raspian includes a client for the camera, raspivid which can output the camera output to standard output. A video4linux driver also exists for the camera, and whilst we could get this to work to host a local rtmp stream, we couldn’t get this to work to stream directly to Youtube. We couldn’t get avconv to work either, Youtube tells us there’s a feed, but there’s no output. Poo.
On a suggestion, we tried a third party cross-compiled ffmpeg library, encoding the output from raspivid. There’s a 15-30 second delay in the content being processed at Youtube’s end, but it works. To make it work yourself, you’ll need to install ffmpeg from here
You’ll then need the details of where you’re uploading to. Head to the Youtube Live dashboard. You’ll need the Server URL and the Stream Name/Key fields:
Once you’ve done all that, execute the following command on your Pi (ideally in a tmux or screen session so you can leave it running):
raspivid -o - -t 0 -vf -hf -fps 30 -b 6000000 | ffmpeg -re -ar 44100 -ac 2 -acodec pcm_s16le -f s16le -ac 2 -i /dev/zero -f h264 -i - -vcodec copy -acodec aac -ab 128k -g 50 -strict experimental -f flv [SERVER URL]/[STREAM NAME]
These happily streamed six hours at a time with no complaints. They’re pretty robust as well, one of them was knocked off the wall a few times. Tape it back up, restart the stream, and presto it carried on working.
Cost per camera:
1 x Raspberry Pi 2B – £28.95
1 x Raspberry Pi Camera Module – £18.58
1 x Pi Hut USB Wifi Adapter – £7.34
1 x Raspberry Pi Case – £6.38
1 x Raspberry Pi Camera Module Add On Cover – £6.45
1 x Lindy 5m USB 2.0 Extension Cable – £4.99
1 x Micro Usb cable (already owned)
1 x 2A Usb Charger (already owned)
Total cost per camera: £72.69
