Pi 5 Birdbox Webcam Setup

Installing a H264 webcam on a Raspberry Pi.

The following can be completed in 15-30 minutes...

Ingredients

• Memory Card for the Pi (e.g. 16Gb)
• Raspberry Pi 5
• USB Webcam

Installing The Operating System

On a Windows or Linux PC, Run the Raspberry Pi Imager, and Select:

• Raspberry Pi 5
• Select Rasberry Pi OS (64-bit)
• Your memory card (e.g. 16Gb)

Edit Settings, and:

• Set the device name, e.g. 'camserver'
• Fill in your Username, Password, WiFi SSID and Password
• Under 'Services', ensure that SSH is enabled, and select 'Use password authentication'

Then select Install, and wait.

Booting the Pi

Connect a webcam (preferably one supporting H.264)

Insert the memory card into the Pi, and power up

The LED will flash Red, then Green, and after that will blink green every time the memory card is accessed.

If the LED remains Red, this indicates that your power supply cannot provide sufficient current.

Logging In

ssh -l user camserver.local

Disabling Swapping to Memory Card

sudo systemctl disable dphys-swapfile.service

  sync; sudo reboot

Install Docker

# Remove conflicting packages (from a fresh install, there should be none)

for pkg in docker.io docker-doc docker-compose podman-docker containerd runc; do sudo apt-get remove $pkg; done

# Add Docker's official GPG key:

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install ca-certificates curl
sudo install -m 0755 -d /etc/apt/keyrings
sudo curl -fsSL https://download.docker.com/linux/raspbian/gpg -o /etc/apt/keyrings/docker.asc
sudo chmod a+r /etc/apt/keyrings/docker.asc

# Add the repository to Apt sources:

echo "Add the repository to Apt sources:"
echo \
$(. /etc/os-release && echo "$VERSION_CODENAME") stable" | \
sudo apt-get -y update
"deb [arch=$(dpkg --print-architecture) signed-by=/etc/apt/keyrings/docker.asc] https://download.docker.com/linux/debian \
sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/docker.list > /dev/null
# Install Docker
sudo apt-get -y install docker-ce docker-ce-cli containerd.io docker-buildx-plugin docker-compose-plugin

# Test Docker

sudo docker run hello-world

Install Restreamer

sudo docker run -d --restart=always --name restreamer \

    -v /opt/restreamer/config:/core/config \

    -v /opt/restreamer/data:/core/data \

    --privileged \

    -p 8080:8080 \

    -p 8181:8181 \

    -p 1935:1935 \

    -p 1936:1936 \

    -p 6000:6000 \

    datarhei/restreamer:latest

Locate the Webcam

lsusb

Bus 001 Device 013: ID 05a3:9331 ARC International Camera

v4l2-ctl --list-devices

HD Web Camera: HD Web Camera (usb-xhci-hcd.0-1):

/dev/video0

/dev/video1

/dev/media3

Configure Restreamer

Connect to: http://camserver.local:8080/ui/

  * Set admin username / password

  * Select video device /dev/video0

  * Select format: H.264, Framerate: 25, Size: 1920x1080, Probe

  * Select the H264 Stream

  * Select Codec: Passthrough / Copy

  * Select Audio source from webcam

  * Select 44100 rate, 1 channel and Probe

  * Select stream