LibrePlanet:Conference/2015/Streaming

Equipment Template — 3-Room Simultaneous Desktop + In-Room Streaming

Camera

• (3×) Elphel NC353L Camera (w/ '12-36V DC/DC' / "12V" option) + C/CS lens adapter ring in-place
• (3×) Tycon POE-INJ-LED-S Shielded POE Inserter with Power & Current LEDS
• (3×) Elphel power adapter, stock [TODO: identify 19V recommendation for long cable runs]
• (3×) 6' Belkin Premium Cat5e Networking Cable (flat/snagless)
• (3×) Universal lithium-ion power pack (generic) + charging cables (camera+router battery backup) [TODO: discontinued, find replacement item]

• (3×) One of the following lenses:
  • Fujinon HF12.5SA-1 2/3" 12.5mm fixed focal lens (5 megapixel, c-mount)
  • Fujinon DV3.4x3.8SA-1 3.8-13mm vari-focal lens (3 megapixel, c-mount)
  • Computar E3Z4518CS-MPIR 5MP Full HD IR Varifocal Lens, 4.5-13.2mm (5 megapixel, c*s*-mount ) (boderline unsuitable for low-lighting conditions)
  • C-mount <-> Canon EF/EF-S Adapter + manual or manual-option Canon lens of your choice (slight loss in pixel definition)
• (1×) Lens cloth + protective case

• (3×) Dolica Proline AX620B100 Tripod –or– (3×) SystemPro "The Clamper" Jr.

Laptop

• (6×) Lenovo x200, Libreboot'd + Open Video Reference Build

Non-ancient layer of thermal paste under CPU heatsink, well-dusted exhaust fan

4GB of fast memory, matching modules. Memtest86+ testing recommended.

>60GB hard drive, SSD preferred (8 hrs = ~50GB video file)

Non-dead battery, no loose power jack connections or similar problems

• (3-6×) Kensington Combination Laptop Lock K64673US

Note that the laptop HDD is easily removable and should be secured when streaming is inactive

• (3-6×) Lenovo 90W Ultraslim AC/DC Combo Adapter, Lenovo P/N 41R4493 (optional)

Audio

• (3×) Ifrogz EarPollution Plugz earbuds + single-use alcohol cleansing pads

One of the following:

• (3×) Pyle PAD10MXU 2-Channel Mini-Mixer
• (3×) Shure X2u XLR-to-USB Signal Adapter
• (3×) Behringer QXENYX1002 USB sound board [TODO: evaluate alternative multi-channel boards]

• (6×) 4' USB 2.0 A/B cable
• (3×) TRS (tip ring sleeve) <-> "male XLR" adapters

• (3×) Dolica Proline AX620B100 Tripod (mic stand – unscrew ball head)
• (3x) Ultimate Support ULTI-BOOM-TB Telescopic Mic Boom

• (3×) [TODO: Research suitable devices for digital-audio XLR-out from podium laptops]
• (3×) 15' XLR cables for balanced-audio out from podium laptop
• (3×) [TODO: Add podium mic stand model numbers]

Some combination of the following:

• (6-9×) Audio-Technica MB-1K Handheld Cardioid Dynamic Vocal Microphone –or– Audio Technica P735 Hypercardioid Dynamic Mic (high-end)
• (3×) XLR<->XLR "male-to-male" adapter
• (3×) XLR<->XLR "female-to-female" adapter
• (6×) 15' XLR cables, good condition
• (3×) Audio-Technica AT8202 Adjustable Inline Attenuator ("padders") (optional -- convert from line-level to mic-level)
• (3×) Shure MX393/O - Omni-Directional Boundary Microphone (ambient-sound pickup -- suitable for group conversations)

Semi-Portable, High-Power In-Room Projection

• (3×) QSC GX3, GX5, GX7 power amplifier
• (6×) QSC Audio AD-S82 –or– QSC I-282H ISIS Surface Mount Loudspeaker
• (6×) 15' Speakon or speaker-wire cables
• (3×) Dolica Proline AX620B100 Tripod (speaker supports)

To convert these tripods to moderate-duty speaker supports: extend center column several inches, tighten locking collar, widen each support leg to the 2nd position using leg angle adjustment locks, remove the entirety of the ball head assembly (grip firmly and unscrew counter-clockwise), secure mic stand adapter nuts w/ Allen key, then twist-in loudspeakers to the adapter nuts

• (3×) 5/8”-27 -- M20 mic stand adapters with locking set screw [TODO: Verify]
• (1×) Allen key, small

General

• (3×) 14' Belkin Premium Cat5e Networking Cable (flat/snagless cable, black) (front-of-room to encoding station)
• (3×) 5-Port Gigabit Ethernet Switch [TODO: find model number]
• (3×) 15' Heavy-guage extension cord, orange
• (3×) Power Sentry 5-Outlet Powersquid
• (3x) Equipment transport bins, clear plastic, snap-shut lid, ~20" x ~15"
• (3×) 9" LED-lighted 3-prong extenion cord (for tight spaces)
• (1×) Label maker
• (1×) Victorinox 54525 pocketknife, black
• (1×) Energizer Aluminum Alloy Waterproof Lithium LED Flashlight
• (1×) 30 yd. Gaffers Tape, black ("tape everything!")
• (1×) Cooper Lighting PQS2504IN1 250W Halogen 4-in-1 Worklight (w/ 150w halogen bulb) (makeshift high-intensity room light)

Software Used

Streaming Server

• IceCast2 2.4.1

Streaming Clients

The following software was compiled and installed via the 'Open Video Reference Build' project on Trisquel 7 GNU/Linux:
git clone git://code.openvideo.pro/openvideo-build.git

• GStreamer
• Jack Audio Server
• [TODO: add the rest]

Set up

Camera

• Unpack the gigabit switch
• Plug the switch into the mains
• Use an ethernet cable to plug the switch into the local network of the site.
• Unpack Elphel 353 camera and attach it to the tripod.
• Attach an Ethernet cable into the RJ-45 connector on the camera
• Plug the other end of the cable into the PoE injector.
• Plug the PoE injector into the switch
• Plug the PoE injector into the mains

At this point you should have have the Elphel 353 camera attached to a tripod, powered on, with the network connection physically setup.

Connecting to the camera

Additional parameters are needed with recently-released SSH clients as camera-supported crypto methods are being deprecated:
ssh -c aes128-cbc -m hmac-sha1 root@192.168.0.9
scp -c aes128-cbc -o MACs=hmac-sha1 root@192.168.0.9:/any/file .

Use the above additional parameters if you receive the following error message when attempting to connect:
debug1: expecting SSH2_MSG_KEXDH_REPLY
Read from socket failed: Connection reset by peer

Changing Imaging Defaults on the Elphel 353

It's helpful to modify parameter defaults to set the preferred capture mode automatically upon each boot -- note that if the image format provided by the camera is mismatched to the GStreamer pipeline the pipeline will fail. An example that changes the window-of-interest to match our "extra-widescreen" pipelines, increases the default JPEG image quality, and disables camera autoexposure in favor of manual control is as follows:

Start by obtaining a copy of the default parameter set:
scp -c aes128-cbc -o MACs=hmac-sha1 root@192.168.0.9:/etc/autocampars.xml .

Copy the following patch into a text editor and save as 'elphel-widescreen.patch' :

--- autocampars.xml.original	2015-09-11 00:45:09.479139493 -0400
+++ autocampars.xml	2015-09-11 01:13:09.405220797 -0400
@@ -532,10 +532,10 @@
         <TRIG>"0"</TRIG>
         <EXPOS>"10000"</EXPOS>
         <VIRT_KEEP>"0"</VIRT_KEEP>
-        <WOI_LEFT>"0"</WOI_LEFT>
-        <WOI_TOP>"0"</WOI_TOP>
-        <WOI_WIDTH>"10000"</WOI_WIDTH>
-        <WOI_HEIGHT>"10000"</WOI_HEIGHT>
+        <WOI_LEFT>"336"</WOI_LEFT>
+        <WOI_TOP>"428"</WOI_TOP>
+        <WOI_WIDTH>"2592"</WOI_WIDTH>
+        <WOI_HEIGHT>"1120"</WOI_HEIGHT>
         <FLIPH>"0"</FLIPH>
         <FLIPV>"0"</FLIPV>
         <FPSFLAGS>"0"</FPSFLAGS>
@@ -563,7 +563,7 @@
         <RSCALE_CTL>"0"</RSCALE_CTL>
         <GSCALE_CTL>"0"</GSCALE_CTL>
         <BSCALE_CTL>"0"</BSCALE_CTL>
-        <QUALITY>"80"</QUALITY>
+        <QUALITY>"90"</QUALITY>
         <PORTRAIT>"0"</PORTRAIT>
         <CORING_INDEX>"327685"</CORING_INDEX>
         <COLOR_SATURATION_BLUE>"200"</COLOR_SATURATION_BLUE>
@@ -581,7 +581,7 @@
         <DGAINGB>"32768"</DGAINGB>
         <DGAINB>"32768"</DGAINB>
         <CORING_PAGE>"0"</CORING_PAGE>
-        <AUTOEXP_ON>"1"</AUTOEXP_ON>
+        <AUTOEXP_ON>"0"</AUTOEXP_ON>
         <HISTWND_RWIDTH>"32768"</HISTWND_RWIDTH>
         <HISTWND_RHEIGHT>"32768"</HISTWND_RHEIGHT>
         <HISTWND_RLEFT>"32768"</HISTWND_RLEFT>
@@ -614,7 +614,7 @@
         <COMPMOD_DCSUB>"0"</COMPMOD_DCSUB>
         <SENSOR_REGS>""</SENSOR_REGS>
         <DAEMON_EN>"0"</DAEMON_EN>
-        <DAEMON_EN_AUTOEXPOSURE>"1"</DAEMON_EN_AUTOEXPOSURE>
+        <DAEMON_EN_AUTOEXPOSURE>"0"</DAEMON_EN_AUTOEXPOSURE>
         <DAEMON_EN_STREAMER>"1"</DAEMON_EN_STREAMER>
         <DAEMON_EN_CCAMFTP>"0"</DAEMON_EN_CCAMFTP>
         <DAEMON_EN_CAMOGM>"0"</DAEMON_EN_CAMOGM>

Then apply the patch we just created to the local copy of the camera parameter set:
patch autocampars.xml widescreen_patch.patch

Finally, upload the patched file to the camera:
ssh -c aes128-cbc -m hmac-sha1 root@192.168.0.9 'cat - > /etc/autocampars.xml; sync' < autocampars.xml

Power-cycle the camera to check that the changes were properly applied.

Image Quality: FPS & Color Balance

Start by setting brightness ("white sun" icon) in the 'Camera GUI (camvc) Controls' to a high value (~90% of max) then slowly decrease the value until 18FPS is achieved, regardless of final streaming framerate. If the resulting image is too dark enlarge the lens aperture and ambient lighting; if the image remains too dark increase gain ("green sun" icon) and gamma ("black/white" marble with vertical divider). Alternatively, 16-17FPS (~4FPS in completely-dark rooms) is acceptable at the cost of noticeable motion blur.

Then, slowly increase the black level ("black/white marble" with horizontal divider) until black objects start to transition into true black in the image. Click the gain icon ("green sun") once to change color control to manual, increase color saturation slightly ("red|green|blue" striped icon) then proceed to tweak the remaining color controls. Clicking on any slider from the bottom will provide coarse adjustment; clicking from the top will provide fine ajustment.

After initial camera values have been set resize the GUI window to hide the in-browser preview image and monitor focus using the GStreamer live preview window.

Our GStreamer Pipeline

In this example please replace the following with your own information:

• 192.168.48.2 - IP Address of camera
• live.example.org - IceCast2 server address
• examplepassword - IceCast2 password
• speaker_mountpoint - IceCast2 mountpoint and local sink filename for the speaker audio/video feed
• slides_mountpoint - IceCast2 mountpoint for the slides

Additional pipelines are listed in the GST Cookbook.

Audio/Video

gst-launch-1.0 -e rtspsrc location=rtsp://192.168.48.2:554 latency=100 ! queue max-size-bytes=100000000 max-size-time=0 ! rtpjpegdepay ! queue max-size-bytes=100000000 max-size-time=0 ! jpegdec max-errors=-1 ! queue max-size-bytes=100000000 max-size-time=0 ! videorate ! video/x-raw,framerate=14/1 ! queue max-size-bytes=100000000 max-size-time=0 ! videoscale ! video/x-raw, width=1296, height=560 ! queue max-size-bytes=100000000 max-size-time=0 ! tee name=halfres ! queue max-size-bytes=100000000 max-size-time=0 ! jpegenc idct-method=2 ! queue max-size-bytes=100000000 max-size-time=0 ! matroskamux name=mux jackaudiosrc connect=1 client-name="GStreamer Input" ! audio/x-raw,rate=48000,channels=1 ! queue max-size-bytes=100000000 max-size-time=0 ! tee name=jackaudio ! queue max-size-bytes=100000000 max-size-time=0 ! vorbisenc ! queue max-size-bytes=100000000 max-size-time=0 ! tee name=vorbisaudio ! queue max-size-bytes=100000000 max-size-time=0 ! mux. mux. ! queue max-size-bytes=100000000 max-size-time=0 ! filesink location=speaker_mountpoint`date +%s`.mkv sync=false halfres. ! queue max-size-bytes=100000000 max-size-time=0 ! videoscale ! video/x-raw,width=648, height=280 ! queue max-size-bytes=100000000 max-size-time=0 ! theoraenc bitrate=400 speed-level=1 ! queue max-size-bytes=100000000 max-size-time=0  ! oggmux name=livestream vorbisaudio. ! queue max-size-bytes=100000000 max-size-time=0 ! livestream. livestream. ! queue max-size-bytes=0 max-size-time=0 ! shout2send ip=live.example.org port=80 password=examplepassword mount=/speaker_mountpoint.ogv halfres. ! videoscale add-borders=true ! queue max-size-bytes=100000000 max-size-time=0 ! videoconvert ! queue max-size-bytes=100000000 max-size-time=0 ! xvimagesink sync=false jackaudio. ! queue max-size-bytes=100000000 max-size-time=0 jackaudio. ! queue max-size-bytes=100000000 max-size-time=0 ! audioconvert ! queue max-size-bytes=100000000 max-size-time=0 ! alsasink

Slides/Screencast

gst-launch-1.0 --eos-on-shutdown ximagesrc use_damage=false ! capsfilter caps=video/x-raw,framerate=4/1,width=1280,height=800  ! queue max-size-bytes=100000000 max-size-time=0 ! videoscale ! video/x-raw, width=1056, height=660 ! queue max-size-bytes=100000000 max-size-time=0 ! videoconvert ! queue max-size-bytes=100000000 max-size-time=0 ! theoraenc bitrate=400 keyframe-auto=false keyframe-force=12 keyframe-freq=12 speed-level=1 drop-frames=false ! queue max-size-bytes=100000000 max-size-time=0 ! oggmux ! queue max-size-bytes=100000000 max-size-time=0 ! shout2send ip=live.example.com port=80 password=examplepassword mount=/slides-mountpoint.ogv

Web Frontend

The live stream web client was written using MithrilJS. This interface depends on Icecast >= 2.4.0 for the JSON statistics API. Source code.

Additionally, a LibreJS-compatible fork of the KiwiIRC client was embedded onto the page. Source code.

Future work

• The in-room streaming X200's are operating at near-100% CPU utilization, limiting the final streaming framerate to 14FPS (18FPS preferred). Evaluate stream stability operating at 18FPS after building GCC from source; alternatively, port X201-series laptops to Libreboot.
• Provide Vorbis-only and/or Opus-only audio streams, CPU overhead permitting.
• Provide instructions for Icecast relays and bandwidth sharing.
• Evaluate Icecast stability under load with HTTPS and low-FPS Theora streams; bare metal hardware might be necessary.
• Integrate <video> element repositioning via jQuery Draggable
• Across-the-board security improvements; development of a Python + openFrameworks streaming app
• Consider 12-hr-delayed re-streaming for across-the-world viewer convenience
• File and bug reports for in-browser playback (esp. Mozilla Firefox-based browsers); watch for regressions and provide patches

[TODO: list specific bugs here for tracking]

This page was a featured resource in May 2015.