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ESP32-P4 UVC Webcam + RTSP IP Camera

USB Video Class 1.5 webcam and RTSP/RTP IP camera running on the ESP32-P4 with an OV5647 sensor. Supports simultaneous USB and Ethernet streaming.

Hardware

  • Board: Olimex ESP32-P4-DevKit
  • SoC: ESP32-P4 (dual-core RISC-V, 400MHz)
  • Sensor: OV5647 (5MP) via 2-lane MIPI CSI at 1920x1080 RAW10 30fps
  • Memory: 32MB PSRAM (hex mode, 200MHz)
  • USB: High-Speed bulk (dedicated DP/DN pins, not the USB-C connector)
  • Ethernet: IP101GR PHY (onboard RMII, 100Mbps)

Wiring

Function GPIO
I2C SDA (SCCB) 7
I2C SCL (SCCB) 8
XCLK (24MHz) 40
MIPI CSI 43-48 (dedicated)
Ethernet MDC 31
Ethernet MDIO 52
Ethernet PHY RST 51

The OV5647 camera module connects via the board's MIPI CSI ribbon connector. USB HS uses dedicated pins (not the USB-C port, which is serial/JTAG only).

Features

USB Video Class (UVC 1.5)

Three output formats over USB High-Speed bulk:

Format Resolutions Notes
UYVY (uncompressed) 640x480, 320x240 2 bytes/pixel, bandwidth-limited
MJPEG 1920x1080, 1280x720, 640x480 Hardware JPEG encoder
H.264 1920x1080, 1280x720, 640x480 Hardware H.264 encoder, frame-based

All formats run at 30fps. Non-native resolutions are center-cropped from the 1080p capture.

Processing Unit controls (adjustable from host):

  • Brightness, contrast, hue, saturation, sharpness, gain
  • White balance temperature (switches ISP color profiles: Tungsten 2873K through Shade 7600K)
  • JPEG quality, H.264 bitrate/GOP/QP via extension units

RTSP/RTP Ethernet Streaming

H.264 video over standard RTSP (RFC 2326) and RTP (RFC 6184):

  • URL: rtsp://<device-ip>:554/stream
  • Codec: H.264 Constrained Baseline, 1920x1080@30fps
  • Default bitrate: 8 Mbps (configurable, GOP=10)
  • Transport: RTP/AVP over UDP unicast
  • Clients: Single concurrent client

The RTSP server operates in self-capture mode -- it independently drives the camera and H.264 encoder when USB is idle. When a USB host starts UVC streaming, the RTSP server yields the camera and pauses until USB streaming stops.

ISP Pipeline

The on-chip ISP processes RAW10 Bayer data with:

  • Color Correction Matrix (CCM) per color temperature profile
  • Auto White Balance gains
  • Gamma correction (sRGB curve)
  • Sharpening, Bayer-domain denoising, demosaic control

Six calibrated profiles from RPi libcamera OV5647 tuning data (2873K-7600K).

Build

Prerequisites

Compile and Flash

# Set up ESP-IDF environment
source /path/to/esp-idf/export.sh

# Build
idf.py set-target esp32p4
idf.py build

# Flash (uses /dev/ttyACM0 by default)
idf.py flash

# Monitor serial output
idf.py monitor

After flashing, the device enumerates as a UVC webcam on USB and starts the RTSP server on Ethernet.

Full Clean Build

If switching Kconfig options or encountering stale cache issues:

idf.py fullclean
rm -f sdkconfig
idf.py build

Configuration

All settings are in idf.py menuconfig under UVC Webcam Configuration:

ISP Color Profile

Default white balance profile applied at startup. Changeable at runtime via the UVC white_balance_temperature control.

Profile Color Temperature
Tungsten 2873K
Indoor-Warm 3725K
Fluorescent 5095K
Daylight (default) 6015K
Cloudy 6865K
Shade 7600K

MJPEG Settings

Option Default Range
JPEG quality 80 1-100

H.264 Settings (USB)

Option Default Range
Bitrate 1,000,000 bps 25K-2.5M
I-frame period 30 1-120
Min QP 25 0-51
Max QP 50 0-51

USB H.264 defaults favor low bitrate since USB HS bulk bandwidth is shared with other formats.

Ethernet / RTSP

Option Default Range
IP mode Static Static / DHCP
Static IP 192.168.0.200 --
Netmask 255.255.255.0 --
Gateway 192.168.0.1 --
RTSP port 554 1-65535
RTSP H.264 bitrate 8,000,000 bps 500K-20M
RTSP H.264 I-period (GOP) 10 1-120
RTSP H.264 min QP 20 0-51
RTSP H.264 max QP 38 0-51

RTSP uses separate H.264 parameters from USB since Ethernet has higher bandwidth (100Mbps) and benefits from higher bitrate and P-frame compression.

Usage

USB Webcam

Connect the USB HS port (not USB-C) to a host. The device appears as a standard UVC webcam.

# List available formats
v4l2-ctl -d /dev/video0 --list-formats-ext

# Play MJPEG 1080p
ffplay /dev/video0 -input_format mjpeg -video_size 1920x1080

# Play H.264 1080p
ffplay /dev/video0 -input_format h264 -video_size 1920x1080

# Play H.264 720p (center-cropped)
ffplay /dev/video0 -input_format h264 -video_size 1280x720

# Record to file
ffmpeg -f v4l2 -input_format mjpeg -video_size 1920x1080 -i /dev/video0 output.mkv

RTSP Streaming

Connect Ethernet and wait for link-up (check serial output for IP address).

# Play with ffplay (low latency flags)
ffplay -fflags nobuffer -flags low_delay -framedrop rtsp://<device-ip>:554/stream

# Play with VLC
vlc rtsp://<device-ip>:554/stream

# Probe stream info
ffprobe rtsp://<device-ip>:554/stream

# Record to file
ffmpeg -i rtsp://<device-ip>:554/stream -c copy output.mp4

Simultaneous USB + Ethernet

Both interfaces can be active, but only one drives the camera at a time:

  1. Ethernet only -- RTSP self-captures from camera/encoder at its own quality settings
  2. USB connects -- RTSP yields, USB takes over camera/encoder
  3. USB disconnects -- RTSP resumes self-capture automatically

This ensures zero resource conflicts while allowing both interfaces to be available.

Architecture

OV5647 ──MIPI CSI──> ISP (RAW10→UYVY) ──> V4L2 Capture (1920x1080)
                                                │
                                          ┌─────┴──────┐
                                          │            │
                                     H.264 HW     JPEG HW
                                      encoder      encoder
                                          │            │
                                    ┌─────┴──────┐     │
                                    │            │     │
                                RTSP/RTP      UVC USB (H.264 + MJPEG + UYVY)
                              (Ethernet)     (High-Speed bulk)
                              port 554

Source Files

File Purpose
app_main.c Startup sequencing
camera_pipeline.c V4L2 camera + ISP initialization
encoder_manager.c H.264/JPEG hardware encoder lifecycle
uvc_streaming.c UVC format negotiation, frame capture, encoding
uvc_controls.c Processing Unit + Extension Unit control bridge
eth_init.c Ethernet PHY init, static IP / DHCP
rtsp_server.c RTSP protocol handler, self-capture loop
rtp_sender.c RTP H.264 packetization (NAL/FU-A)
perf_monitor.c CPU usage, memory, streaming stats
board_olimex_p4.h Board pin definitions

Key Dependencies

Component Source
esp_video ESP-IDF camera V4L2 framework
esp_cam_sensor OV5647 MIPI CSI driver
esp_h264 Hardware H.264 encoder
tinyusb USB device stack (UVC 1.5)
usb_device_uvc UVC class driver (local component)
esp_eth Ethernet MAC + IP101 PHY driver

License

Apache-2.0

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ESP32-P4 UVC 1.5 webcam with OV5647 MIPI CSI - MJPEG/H.264 streaming

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