A very simple post today. With Kürünä, we're all grounded home ain't it.. Well, it's been like this for a long while, hence this hasn't been a big change for me really. What did change tough is my "online" meetings schedules.. And by a massive amplitude.
So to make things short, while it's been literally 4 months that I haven't traveled a single miles for my job (which was very frequent pre-Cöwëëd-i9), I've decided to P2V my work laptop OS. Why should I run a portable system if it won't be carried anywhere?
With that, my embedded camera hasn't been part of the Virtualization operations mind you. While everything else has been working without any issues, I've had lost the ability to show my messy lab room, my dirty old football jersey's, my ultra crowded desk and last but not least my unshaven old face.
Well, I thought that it won't be a problem as I've got that cool Ubiquiti UVC G3 Flex IP/PoE camera.. Which I've re-installed (was laying around) and started fiddling around in order to find ways to gather the provided IP based RTSP stream within super duper Windows OS.. Well it's not that easy..
According to my researches, Windows 10 is supposedly able to add an IP Camera as a local capture device. Let me add my view on it; with extreme tail wind, on the same subnet, without any device policing any packets from w10 to IP camera and the latter shall be ONVIF Profile S compliant. So let's be honest; this is a 99% failure ratio.
Well, the solution I've found out implies a Client/Server small app and a local Windows 10 VM small IP Video Bridge so to speak.
1st I've downloaded and installed NetCam Studio Server which I've deployed on a VM seated on the same vLAN as the UVC G3 Camera. From NetCam you're free to add signaling sources, in my case RTSP and the /s1 RTSP source stream.
Once the video stream is present within NetCam Studio Server, you're free to tap on it directly at the NetCam server itself.. NetCam comes with a web client on which you can logon and verify the live stream etc.. Nice, all coming as well with access control and with some little tweaks explained here, served over HTTPS. Beware the NetCam upgrades, they'll overwrite the ssl/tls config, so save that...
Nice, nice, we just need now to find a way to properly bridge this as a local capture device within Sindows 10. After a few unsuccessful try outs, I've found this code right here; https://alax.info/blog/1216 the tool is simply named IP Video Source and this will provide your Woopdose VM with a local capture device over an IP bridge.. Fantastic, let's review my config:
Indeed, all you need to do is to provide your up stream NetCam server IP:port/stream and credentials if you so choose to request authorization in order to view the stream. (Of course, I'm using user:password =).
Et voilà, no wizards, no broadcasts, no nonsense and Fundows is happily serving my cam stream within Teams / GTM / FleetMeet / WeReAllOnline / Ca$hForMeetings / GangsOfTheBandwidth / MeetingsTroopers / MeetMe@AllUDPPorts / EvenIfYoureFollowingOurDocsItDoesntWorkMeetMe / AllInAllOutOpenMeets / DDoSYourSelvesProMeet / DigitalMuppetShow.
Well you've guessed it, it just works (for the camera...).
Happy meetings.
Obuno
Image credits: courtesy of Alien Isolation, the video game