Webcam

This feature is experimental in version 0.17.

Known limitations and caveats - see #1113:

• only support with Linux servers
• work in progress, see #1030
• there is no systray menu for it
• framerate is low
• black and white only, low resolution (hardcoded csc dependencies)
• no support for multiple sessions per server..
• detecting when devices are added or removed? (dbus?)
• it uses too much bandwidth (mostly wasted too)
• server setup requires an out of tree kernel module
• etc...

Installation

Clients only rely on ​opencv and its python bindings. (the win32 installers include it, )

The server relies on a virtual video device, you must install the v4l2loopback kernel module from ​https://github.com/umlaeute/v4l2loopback. (build then just modprobe v4l2loopback).

The user running the xpra session must be able to access the video devices (ie: adding the user to the video group)

Usage

The server should work out of the box.

Until a systray menu is added, you must start the client with --webcam=on. (you can also specify which video device to use: --webcam=/dev/video2)

Debugging

• use the -d webcam debug flag
• run python ./xpra/platform/xposix/webcam_util.py, the correct output looks like this:

  python ./xpra/platform/xposix/webcam_util.py 
  Found 1 virtual video device:
  /dev/video1
  

Versions 0.17.0-r11886 onwards include test application for capturing from the webcam using the same code that will be used to forward the webcam data to the server. Run ./xpra/scripts/show_webcam.py, or Webcam_Test on win32 and OSX.