Coswell Productions

Ustreaming your desktop on Ubuntu Intrepid Ibex

I just spent a few hours today figuring out the most efficient method for broadcasting my drawing of A Moment of Clarity out to the world using Ustream. A lot of other comic artists do this on a regular basis, and so I wanted to join in on the fun.

I tried WebcamStudio, but it was way too much of a CPU hog on my system. It worked...kind of...but it too slow to be usable (sorry). So I moved on to trusty old ffmpeg and the x11grab video input driver.

This post on Ubuntu Forums got it all working for me. The vloopback driver from WebcamStudio is the one you want to use. and make sure you're a member of the video group. For my own reference, here's how I ended up recording the footage off my second monitor at 160x120 5 fps for Ustream:

ffmpeg -f x11grab -s 1280x1024 -r 5 -i :0.0+1280,0 -pix_fmt yuv420p -sws_flags lanczos -s 160x120 -r 5 -f yuv4mpegpipe -an - | mjpegtools_yuv_to_v4l /dev/video1

Unfortunately, audio capture is not working yet in Flash 10 for Linux, so I can't talk while I draw.

See what else is here...