Video Capture Device (v4l2) plugin

JohnDee

New Member
Thanks! Can you confirm you're running OBS version > 26? I just did a new install on Ubuntu snap 20.10, v4l2loopback-dkms, on a different machine and I can't find it. If you're running version 26, that would give me a lot of info.
 

frisco

New Member
Thanks! Can you confirm you're running OBS version > 26? I just did a new install on Ubuntu snap 20.10, v4l2loopback-dkms, on a different machine and I can't find it. If you're running version 26, that would give me a lot of info.

I'm running 26.1.0 on arch linux. That's just the default obs-studio package. I'm using obs-v4l2sink from git commit 36d5bdb, compiled against obs 26.1.0.
 

Quick

New Member
Hi.

I am super new to Ubuntu. I run a YouTube channel and I can't use my regular things I use for making videos. OBS seems to be the best option along with Shortcut which I plan to use.

I have no idea how to use this stuff. I have been searching all over and can't find a fix. My problem isn't that I can't select V4L2 but that I have no picture at all even when I have it selected. I tried recording, but I still get no picture and don't know where to find my video recordings so I can't check with another program to see if my recording works or not. I think my audio works fine, but it's a little low. So if someone knows how I can actually view what I am recording and also how to turn my mic up that would be awesome.

My webcam is: PC Webcam for Streaming HD 1080P, Vitade 960A USB Pro Computer Web Camera Video Cam for Mac Windows Laptop Conferencing Gaming with Microphone & Ring Light
My mic is: USB Microphone Kit 192KHZ/24BIT MAONO AU-A04T PC Condenser Podcast Streaming Cardioid Mic Plug & Play for Computer, YouTube, Gaming Recording

Thanks to anyone willing to help a complete newb out.
 

Quick

New Member
Hi.

I am super new to Ubuntu. I run a YouTube channel and I can't use my regular things I use for making videos. OBS seems to be the best option along with Shortcut which I plan to use.

I have no idea how to use this stuff. I have been searching all over and can't find a fix. My problem isn't that I can't select V4L2 but that I have no picture at all even when I have it selected. I tried recording, but I still get no picture and don't know where to find my video recordings so I can't check with another program to see if my recording works or not. I think my audio works fine, but it's a little low. So if someone knows how I can actually view what I am recording and also how to turn my mic up that would be awesome.

My webcam is: PC Webcam for Streaming HD 1080P, Vitade 960A USB Pro Computer Web Camera Video Cam for Mac Windows Laptop Conferencing Gaming with Microphone & Ring Light
My mic is: USB Microphone Kit 192KHZ/24BIT MAONO AU-A04T PC Condenser Podcast Streaming Cardioid Mic Plug & Play for Computer, YouTube, Gaming Recording

Thanks to anyone willing to help a complete newb out.
UPDATE: I was able to see my webcam works with cheese but I still can't see anything in OBS Studio
UPDATE: I found out there was more installing to do before it can work. I ran this "sudo apt install v4l-utils v4l2loopback-dkms v4l2loopback-utils"
But now I have to run this "v4l2loopback-utils" but it say "v4l2loopback-utils: command not found"
UPDATE: I was trying to follow the directions here: https://github.com/CatxFish/obs-v4l2sink/issues/54

I got to this step: sudo apt-get install libobs-dev
And I got this message: "E: Unable to correct problems, you have held broken packages."

UPDATE: I ran this command: "sudo dpkg - obs-4l2sink.deb"
And got this message: "dpkg: error: need an action option"

What should I do?
 

Quick

New Member
Update: I now have 2 different plugin options under Tools for v4l2sink; one is just below the other. How do I fix this?
 

actuday

New Member
Hello!
I saw on the v4l2 GitHub that the plugin now ships with OBS. My version is 26.1.2-1, but I don't have the v4l2 option under Tools. I've already installed the v4l2loopback package from pacman and enabled the kernel module with modprobe.
However, I do have an option called "Start Virtual Camera" on the bottom right of OBS, but it doesn't seem to do much and I can't find any settings for it either.
 

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Schmiddi1206

New Member
Hey guys, my english is very bad. I need help. I am a Streamer of a Mobile App and i dont can use the virtual CAM. Pls help me, my favorite league is German ;)
 

dsales

New Member
Hi

I have a problem with usb cameras which don't report the fps properly. The v4l2 plugin sees it as NaN, so it defines a negative timeout, which creates huge amounts of error logs (several GB in a few minutes).
I posted the issue in the Linux Support Forum, but I haven't received any news, except for someone who has the same problem. You can see the details in this thread: Huge amount of error logs when camera doesn't return framerate

I hope that someone can help me on that here.
Thanks in advance
 

OmegaFlatulence

New Member
Hi, is there any way to set the video capture device to a custom resolution? I use a datapath Vision card and capture numerous arcade PCB's that have non standard resolutions (such as 384x224 and 448x224) but I'm unable to dial these in like in a Windows build. Is there any way to manually set these capture resolutions with the current OBS v4l2 module? Is there a work around if it's not possible?
 

Dakas

New Member
Hi, I think just recently I found "MJPEG" as a native pixel format option (in addition to the previous alternatives of YUV/YVU/BGR3 (emulated) that are still present) for some V4L2 capture devices. A pleasant surprise, but I have not been able to find anything in the release announcements that would suggest when or where this has been added. Anybody has a suggestion when this might have happened? Or is this a consequence of kernel updates or library changes or possibly some other change unrelated to OBS?
 

Dakas

New Member
Hi, I think just recently I found "MJPEG" as a native pixel format option (in addition to the previous alternatives of YUV/YVU/BGR3 (emulated) that are still present) for some V4L2 capture devices. A pleasant surprise, but I have not been able to find anything in the release announcements that would suggest when or where this has been added. Anybody has a suggestion when this might have happened? Or is this a consequence of kernel updates or library changes or possibly some other change unrelated to OBS?

I presume that this is due to the following commit (significant time span between creation and actual commit in its current form):
Code:
commit 1c2aea4f89659d69080c397e3377e6183990a135
Author:     Morten Bøgeskov <source@kosmisk.dk>
AuthorDate: Sun Jun 7 10:12:01 2020 +0200
Commit:     Jim <obs.jim@gmail.com>
CommitDate: Tue Nov 2 06:04:54 2021 -0700

    linux-v4l2: Support for Motion-JPEG codec
 

Bellator138

New Member
Hello! I'm new here. I installed it and the Qt V4L2 video capture utility does not open at all. The Video test utility opens just fine though. I don't know how to run it in a terminal so I need help with that part so I can post a log file.

Thanks!
 

Quanifi

New Member
Thank you for the report, as you already noticed there is currently no option for choosing the input. I'll try to implement support for that in the future.
I got the DroidCam app working online only on my Zorin Pro16/Ubuntu PC. But it is not showing up in OBS as a device choice, just the DeskCam as always. Any suggestions....???
 

paranoidfactoid

New Member
Hi! I'm trying to get an Elgato 1080p usb capture card working in OBS. I have the card, a Panny GH4 camera, and hdmi cable. Running OBS 30.0.on Ubuntu 23.10 OS, Kernel 6.5. There's Pipewire installed, which when I run helvum shows the capture device. And when I run v42l-cttl, it shows the camera recognized.

$ v4l2-ctl -d /dev/video3 --list-formats-ext
ioctl: VIDIOC_ENUM_FMT
Type: Video Capture

[0]: 'YUYV' (YUYV 4:2:2)
Size: Discrete 1920x1080
Interval: Discrete 0.033s (29.970 fps)

Further, if I run ffplay, I get video!

$ ffplay -pixel_format yuyv422 /dev/video3

[VIDEO WINDOW POPS UP WITH WORKING CAMERA CAPTURE]

This tells me the hardware and OS Kernel does work. So something further up the stack to OBS is b0rked. And I should add, the v4l2 module does not work at all. It recognizes that there's a CAMLINK present, but won't show any video.

Any suggestions?

Thanks!
 

paranoidfactoid

New Member
Hi! I'm trying to get an Elgato 1080p usb capture card working in OBS. I have the card, a Panny GH4 camera, and hdmi cable. Running OBS 30.0.on Ubuntu 23.10 OS, Kernel 6.5. There's Pipewire installed, which when I run helvum shows the capture device. And when I run v42l-cttl, it shows the camera recognized.



Further, if I run ffplay, I get video!



This tells me the hardware and OS Kernel does work. So something further up the stack to OBS is b0rked. And I should add, the v4l2 module does not work at all. It recognizes that there's a CAMLINK present, but won't show any video.

Any suggestions?

Thanks!
Replying to myself: After trying just about everything, I found a random post that suggested starting OBS from the command line. I'd been launching it from a desktop dock.

Aaaaand, that fixed the problem. I have no idea why.
 
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