CODEWITHSUNDEEP
vb6ffmpegstreamingwebcam
David Tran
David Tran

Reputation: 10616

Solution for VB6 to broadcast Webcam

Sorry, I know VB6 is decades ago, but I'm in a situation that I have to use VB6 to deliver live webcam stream beetween 2 PC in Server - Client Model program. Vb6-code holds the connection then I have no choice but to transfer all data via that connection.

I've tried weeks for this, uncountable approaches but went to nowhere. My efforts focused on 3 major approaches:

1/ Use ffmpeg to record live webcam as ".avi" file on hard disk, transfer parts of file to other end & play it. But I've stucked with a media-player that can play a "being written" avi file.

Windows Media Player control told me "file already in use..." & VLC Plugin can't even be added to VB6 (axvlc.dll).

2/ Use ffmpeg to save live webcam as avi file, transfer each bit of that file to the other end, then in other end, extract 24 images / second from the avi to display continously in a picture box. This approach is ok except that my hard disk get fulled of images in a time of wink and my program get very slow before hanging.

3/ Use ffmpeg to stream the live webcam to a rtp-port like this:

ffmpeg -f dshow -i video="Lenovo EasyCamera" -vcodec mpeg2video -pix_fmt yuv422p -f rtp -an rtp://224.1.2.3:8191

I've successfully watch the stream in VLC, but VLC(axvlc.dll) refused to be integrated into ancient VB6. And more important, I don't know how to redirect/reroute the rtp stream to other PC with VB6.

Any one please light me up? (Any 3rd party component is welcomed)

Upvotes: 7

Views: 2797

Answers (1)

gmlime
gmlime

Reputation: 1017

After some research it seems that Microsoft uses rtsp which is a variation of the rtp protocol. Fortunately ffmpeg supports muxing and demuxing in that format. https://www.ffmpeg.org/ffmpeg-protocols.html#rtsp . You may have to adjust the parameters outlined.
If the server must be a vb6 frontend, you can have ffmpeg launched as the backend from the command line. This is a common method and I found an example of it here: https://www.ehow.com/how_6038708_use-ffmpeg-visual-basic-6.html for reference.

The next stage is the ability to play those streams in visual basic 6. What you can do is add a Windows Media Player control and set its property WindowsMediaPlayer1.URL to {a list with your url added to it as a string}.
One version of control has a id of {6BF52A50-394A-11D3-B153-00C04F79FAA6} and the dll is wmp.dll. Make sure the control has autoStart & invokeURLs set to true.

Some other things worth mentioning is trying to use WMP compliant codecs and contains such as windows media video.

Upvotes: 3

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