How can I stream webcam video with C

Question

I want to make a simple server application where people can connect using a browser-based client  which I will make later  to watch streaming video  And I want to use C    What do I need to capture video or rapid images through a webcam and send them over the network

User · Answer

You could just use VideoLAN  VideoLAN will work as a server  or you can wrap your own C  application around it for more control   There are also  NET wrappers for the viewer that you can use and thus embed in your C  client

User · Answer

If you want a  capture streamer in a box  component  there are several out there as others have mentioned   If you want to get down to the low-level control over it all  you ll need to use DirectShow as thealliedhacker points out  The best way to use DirectShow in C  is through the DirectShow Net library - it wraps all of the DirectShow COM APIs and includes many useful shortcut functions for you   In addition to capturing and streaming  you can also do recording  audio and video format conversions  audio and video live filters  and a whole lot of stuff   Microsoft claims DirectShow is going away  but they have yet to release a new library or API that does everything that DirectShow provides  I suspect many of the latest things they have released are still DirectShow under the hood  Because of its status at Microsoft  there aren t a whole lot of books or references on it other than MSDN and what you can find on forums  Last year when we started a project using it  the best book on the subject - Programming Microsoft DirectShow - was out of print and going for around  350 for a used copy

User · Answer

You could just use VideoLAN  VideoLAN will work as a server  or you can wrap your own C  application around it for more control   There are also  NET wrappers for the viewer that you can use and thus embed in your C  client

User · Answer

If you want a  capture streamer in a box  component  there are several out there as others have mentioned   If you want to get down to the low-level control over it all  you ll need to use DirectShow as thealliedhacker points out  The best way to use DirectShow in C  is through the DirectShow Net library - it wraps all of the DirectShow COM APIs and includes many useful shortcut functions for you   In addition to capturing and streaming  you can also do recording  audio and video format conversions  audio and video live filters  and a whole lot of stuff   Microsoft claims DirectShow is going away  but they have yet to release a new library or API that does everything that DirectShow provides  I suspect many of the latest things they have released are still DirectShow under the hood  Because of its status at Microsoft  there aren t a whole lot of books or references on it other than MSDN and what you can find on forums  Last year when we started a project using it  the best book on the subject - Programming Microsoft DirectShow - was out of print and going for around  350 for a used copy

User · Answer

I ve used VideoCapX for our project  It will stream out as MMS ASF stream which can be open by media player  You can then embed media player into your webpage   If you won t need much control  or if you want to try out VideoCapX without writing a code  try U-Broadcast  they use VideoCapX behind the scene

User · Answer

The usual API for this is DirectShow    You can use P Invoke to import the C   APIs  but I think there are already a few projects out there that have done this    http   channel9 msdn com forums TechOff 93476-Programatically-Using-A-Webcam-In-C   http   www codeproject com KB directx DirXVidStrm aspx  To get the streaming part  you probably want to use DirectShow to apply a compression codec to reduce lag  then you can get a Stream and transmit it  You could consider using multicast to reduce network load

User · Answer

Another option to stream images from a webcam to a browser is via mjpeg  This is just a series of jpeg images that most modern browsers support as part of the  tag  Here s a sample server written in c    https   www codeproject com articles 371955 motion-jpeg-streaming-server  This works well over a LAN  but not as well over the internet as mjpeg is not as effcient as  other video codecs  h264  VP8 etc

User · Answer

If you want to record video from within a web browser  I think your only option is Flash   We are looking to do the same thing   We are also primarily a  NET house and I don t see a way to use  NET to capture the webcam  from within the browser    All of the other solutions mentioned here would probably work great if you are happy to settle for a desktop app

User · Answer

The usual API for this is DirectShow    You can use P Invoke to import the C   APIs  but I think there are already a few projects out there that have done this    http   channel9 msdn com forums TechOff 93476-Programatically-Using-A-Webcam-In-C   http   www codeproject com KB directx DirXVidStrm aspx  To get the streaming part  you probably want to use DirectShow to apply a compression codec to reduce lag  then you can get a Stream and transmit it  You could consider using multicast to reduce network load

User · Answer

You could just use VideoLAN  VideoLAN will work as a server  or you can wrap your own C  application around it for more control   There are also  NET wrappers for the viewer that you can use and thus embed in your C  client

User · Answer

Another option to stream images from a webcam to a browser is via mjpeg  This is just a series of jpeg images that most modern browsers support as part of the  tag  Here s a sample server written in c    https   www codeproject com articles 371955 motion-jpeg-streaming-server  This works well over a LAN  but not as well over the internet as mjpeg is not as effcient as  other video codecs  h264  VP8 etc

User · Answer

If you want to record video from within a web browser  I think your only option is Flash   We are looking to do the same thing   We are also primarily a  NET house and I don t see a way to use  NET to capture the webcam  from within the browser    All of the other solutions mentioned here would probably work great if you are happy to settle for a desktop app

User · Answer

If you want a  capture streamer in a box  component  there are several out there as others have mentioned   If you want to get down to the low-level control over it all  you ll need to use DirectShow as thealliedhacker points out  The best way to use DirectShow in C  is through the DirectShow Net library - it wraps all of the DirectShow COM APIs and includes many useful shortcut functions for you   In addition to capturing and streaming  you can also do recording  audio and video format conversions  audio and video live filters  and a whole lot of stuff   Microsoft claims DirectShow is going away  but they have yet to release a new library or API that does everything that DirectShow provides  I suspect many of the latest things they have released are still DirectShow under the hood  Because of its status at Microsoft  there aren t a whole lot of books or references on it other than MSDN and what you can find on forums  Last year when we started a project using it  the best book on the subject - Programming Microsoft DirectShow - was out of print and going for around  350 for a used copy

User · Answer

I ve used VideoCapX for our project  It will stream out as MMS ASF stream which can be open by media player  You can then embed media player into your webpage   If you won t need much control  or if you want to try out VideoCapX without writing a code  try U-Broadcast  they use VideoCapX behind the scene

User · Answer

The usual API for this is DirectShow    You can use P Invoke to import the C   APIs  but I think there are already a few projects out there that have done this    http   channel9 msdn com forums TechOff 93476-Programatically-Using-A-Webcam-In-C   http   www codeproject com KB directx DirXVidStrm aspx  To get the streaming part  you probably want to use DirectShow to apply a compression codec to reduce lag  then you can get a Stream and transmit it  You could consider using multicast to reduce network load

User · Answer

I ve used VideoCapX for our project  It will stream out as MMS ASF stream which can be open by media player  You can then embed media player into your webpage   If you won t need much control  or if you want to try out VideoCapX without writing a code  try U-Broadcast  they use VideoCapX behind the scene

User · Answer

If you want a  capture streamer in a box  component  there are several out there as others have mentioned   If you want to get down to the low-level control over it all  you ll need to use DirectShow as thealliedhacker points out  The best way to use DirectShow in C  is through the DirectShow Net library - it wraps all of the DirectShow COM APIs and includes many useful shortcut functions for you   In addition to capturing and streaming  you can also do recording  audio and video format conversions  audio and video live filters  and a whole lot of stuff   Microsoft claims DirectShow is going away  but they have yet to release a new library or API that does everything that DirectShow provides  I suspect many of the latest things they have released are still DirectShow under the hood  Because of its status at Microsoft  there aren t a whole lot of books or references on it other than MSDN and what you can find on forums  Last year when we started a project using it  the best book on the subject - Programming Microsoft DirectShow - was out of print and going for around  350 for a used copy

User · Answer

I ve used VideoCapX for our project  It will stream out as MMS ASF stream which can be open by media player  You can then embed media player into your webpage   If you won t need much control  or if you want to try out VideoCapX without writing a code  try U-Broadcast  they use VideoCapX behind the scene

User · Answer

You could just use VideoLAN  VideoLAN will work as a server  or you can wrap your own C  application around it for more control   There are also  NET wrappers for the viewer that you can use and thus embed in your C  client

User · Answer

The usual API for this is DirectShow    You can use P Invoke to import the C   APIs  but I think there are already a few projects out there that have done this    http   channel9 msdn com forums TechOff 93476-Programatically-Using-A-Webcam-In-C   http   www codeproject com KB directx DirXVidStrm aspx  To get the streaming part  you probably want to use DirectShow to apply a compression codec to reduce lag  then you can get a Stream and transmit it  You could consider using multicast to reduce network load

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