Using a virtual camera with OBS to connect IP cameras to Geti

[MarkRedeman]

While Geti does not have official first party support for connecting with remote cameras over ip, it is possible to do so by using a virtual camera.
At the moment Geti supports capturing media via your pc's onboard camera or any usb attached cameras. These cameras are detected by your browser which allows us to connect to them.

Using tools like OBS¹ we can find setup ip cameras as a virtual camera giving your browser access to them.

Prerequisites

First you will need to install OBS Studio. The installation instructions for OBS can be found here:

• Linux
• Mac
• Windows

Next start OBS and check if on the bottom right under "Controls" a button is displayed that says "Start virtual Camera".

If it is then you're all set, if it is not then you may need to install v4l2loopback.

Step 2 - install v4l2loopback

On Linux you may need to install a v4l2loopback, we've found the following commands work:

sudo snap connect obs-studio:kernel-module-observe
sudo apt -y install v4l2loopback-dkms v4l2loopback-utils
echo "options v4l2loopback devices=1 video_nr=13 card_label='OBS Virtual Camera'    exclusive_caps=1" | sudo tee /etc/modprobe.d/v4l2loopback.conf
echo "v4l2loopback" | sudo tee /etc/modules-load.d/v4l2loopback.conf
sudo modprobe -r v4l2loopback
sudo modprobe v4l2loopback devices=1 video_nr=13 card_label='OBS Virtual Camera' exclusive_caps=1

Next restart OBS and you should see the "Start virtual Camera" button.

Setting up an input source

Now that you've installed OBS and can configure it to output to a virtual camera all you need to do is add a source.

1. Use an IP camera

In the Sources panel press the "+" button and select "Media source". Next provide it with a name like "Factory Belt IP Camera 1" and select next.
Deselect "Local file" and fill in the ip address of your camera in the "Input" field.

As I didn't have any IP cameras available I was using the IP Webcam app on Android with username admin and password test so I used the input http://admin:[email protected]:8080/video.

I also set the "reconnect Display" option to 1s.
Next click "Ok" and you should see your camera's view inside of OBS.

2. Use a browser embeddable

Another interesting feature is that you can directly embed life feeds from youtube.

Using the OBS camera in Geti

After you've configured your input source press the "Start Virtual Camera" button and then open Geti.
Under the "Camera settings" section select the devices dropdown and select "OBS Virtual Camera" to start capturing data from your IP camera.

References

• Installing OBS Studio using SNAP (linux)
• OBS - Virtual Camera Guide
• How to: Use your Android mobile device as streaming camera with OBS

Troubleshooting

Geti does not detect the "OBS Virtual Camera"

This might depend on the browser you are using, on Windows we've found that Microsoft Edge did work.

Footnotes

1. There are alternative methods using ffmpeg or gstreamer but these require more technical knowledge ↩