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How to stream video from the Raspberry Pi camera over a network

To view the feed on Linux

Install the dependencies by running the following in a terminal:

sudo apt-get install mplayer netcat

Find your IP address by running ifconfig. (Your IP address will be listed in the console output and will probably be of the form 192.168.1.XXX).

Run the following command in a terminal to view the feed using MPlayer:

nc -l -p 5001 | mplayer -fps 31 -cache 1024 -

To view the feed on Windows

Install and run Linux instead.

Find your IP address by running ipconfig. (Your IP address will be listed in the console output and will probably be of the form 192.168.1.XXX).

Download MPlayer.

Download Netcat.

Note that your browser may complain that these files are malicious, as they are unsigned executables.

Press the Windows key and the ‘r’ key simultaneously to bring up the “Run” dialog. Enter cmd.exe into the dialog and press enter/return to open a DOS prompt.

Enter the following command at the prompt to view the feed using MPlayer:

[Path to nc.exe]\nc.exe -L -p 5001 | [Path to mplayer.exe]\mplayer.exe -fps 31 -cache 1024 -

To view the feed on OS X

Download MPlayer.

Alternatively, you can download mplayer using Brew, which we recommend.

Find your IP address by running ifconfig. (Your IP address will be listed in the console output and will probably be of the form 192.168.1.XXX).

Run the following command in Terminal to view the feed using MPlayer:

nc -l -p 5001 | mplayer -fps 31 -cache 1024 -

To view the feed on a Raspberry Pi:

Find your IP address by running ifconfig. (Your IP address will be listed in the console output and will probably be of the form 192.168.1.XXX).

Run the following commands in a terminal on the receiving Pi:

mkfifo buffer
nc -p 5001 -l > buffer | /opt/vc/src/hello_pi/hello_video/hello_video.bin buffer

To transmit the feed from the Pi with camera module attached

After setting up the “receiving” machine as per the instructions above, run the following commands in a terminal on the “transmitting” Pi:

raspivid -t 999999 -o – | nc [insert the IP address of the client] 5001

You can then use the commands listed in the “How to use the Raspberry Pi camera software” section above to change the capture time or to add a video effect.