[iConnect] Almost done - Wireless Video Streaming

[Conn]

Hello everyone,

I'm halfway doing what I was planning to make : A wireless video streaming indoor robot . I wanted to inform beginners about what I've done so far and how I did it work my way. I'm not a guru and I just used what great people have made available for us.

My configuration is as follows :

- Feroceon 88FR131 rev. 1. ARMv5TE cr=00053977 with 256MB RAM
- Genesys Logic, Inc. USB 2.0 IDE Adapter (GL811E)
- Fujitsu 2,5" IDE HDD
- Nam Tai E&E Products Ltd. (OmniVision Sony Playstation Eye)
- 3.1.10-4-Arch

This setup is working flawlessly... I invoke wireless with :
$this->bbcode_second_pass_code('', 'wicd
ifconfig wlan0 up
netcfg wireless-wpa ')

but I don't know how to make everything work automatically during boot up yet.

I used ffmpeg to start streaming and it works OK :
$this->bbcode_second_pass_code('', 'ffserver -f /etc/ffserver.conf & ffmpeg -v 2 -r 5 -s 640x480 -f video4linux2 -i /dev/video0 http://localhost:8090/webcam.ffm ')

I installed Python 2.0 and used serial communications module pySerial to talk to my Arduino board as follows (cMsg is sensor output from Arduino, cCmd is command I tell the robot what to do, just an example of simple commands):
$this->bbcode_second_pass_code('', '>>> import serial
>>> ser = serial.Serial('/dev/ttyACM0', 9600)
>>> cMsg = ser.readline()
>>> ser.write(cCmd)
')

I just wanted to contribute a small amount to this great community.

Cheers,
Conn

[Conn]

Now to my question :

Does anyone know what to use and how to use it as a "Video Streaming Server"? ffmpeg works allright, but it is so slow it is not a video, just some frames every now and then. I tried to stream smaller videos (like 320x240) but it's the same, even when I work on the same wired 100Mb hub.

I want to stream 2 videos (stereo) or one video with 2 cam images by using a USB converter.

Please suggest...

Conn

[kmihelich]

If you stream the raw data, you should be fine at lower resolutions, limited by USB/network. If any transformations on the captured data are taking place in software, it's simply not going to work on a plug computer. The processor lacks a floating point unit (FPU) to handle the video transformations you're requesting of it, hence just getting single frames every so often.

[Conn]

I believe there should be some way to get 15fps at 640x480 video with a 1GHz computer. If there isn't, it defies my purpose of using iConnect. Have you tried to solve the problem with another plug computer?

Conn

[kmihelich]

When you think of a 1GHz computer, don't compare 1GHz of x86 to 1GHz of ARM, they are two very different beasts. Clock speed comparisons are irrelevant across architectures anyway. In this particular instance, it's not clock speed that is the issue, it's the lack of an FPU as I mentioned. x86 processors have had them basically forever, and with ARM it's a matter of implementation. There is no hardware capability to handle floating point values, which is what are being used in video transformations. Basically, each value needs to be converted into integer representations, integer operations performed, then transformed back into floating point. This is an expensive operation.

An ARMv7 platform like the Beagleboard can process multimedia natively, and quite efficiently, since there is an FPU in the processor to handle floating point values and permutations on them.

[WarheadsSE]

BeagleBoard seems fine but pretty expensive in my city. I bought a few iConnects for as low as $60 each while I found a BeagleBoard XM for $275!!! I can buy a double core Atom board with 4GB ram and everything!

Form my POV iConnect and BeagleBoard are almost the same (well not exactly). What do you suggest using then? Will a Raspberry Pi do the job? Maybe we can do smth (something) to stream video in a different way?

Regards,
Conn

[kmihelich]

the iConnect and Beagleboard might *look* similar but under the hood they are entirely different. The iConnect is a Marvell Kirkwood 1.2GHz armv5tel, the Beagle is a TI OMAP3 1GHz armv7l with vfpv3+NEON FPUs. Two wholly different classes, and the OMAP absolutely crushes the Kirkwood in performance.

The RPi could likely handle it with a rebuild of ffmpeg, and any auxiliary libraries.

Like I said, if you work on just the raw stream data, effectively piping it from the camera to the network, that should work. Also, there are quite a few software packages out there dealing specifically with webcam stuff.

[Philoo]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'w')icd
ifconfig wlan0 up
netcfg wireless-wpa
but I don't know how to make everything work automatically during boot up yet.

[Conn]

Thank you guys... I'll work on video streaming some more. I'll get back to you when I have some improvements.

Conn

[Philoo]

BTW you DO know that the iconnect has a few GPIO accessible though some soldering and identification is needed http://www.flickr.com/photos/52072764@N02/6351388468/in/photostream

I can't find the page but a polish guy managed to use these to jtag and restore a badly damaged iconnect.