Command line tool to capture webcam video in Windows Xp

Question

I want to know how to capture webcam video and dump the raw as well as an encoded version using ffmpeg. I want only the video stream. I'm on Windows xp.

Answer 1

From here, you can see a list of DirectShow devices with

ffmpeg -list_devices true -f dshow -i dummy

If you have a built-in webcam on a laptop, it should be called something like `"Integrated Camera", and you can capture from it using the following (obviously, substitute the name of your webcam device, and note that the quotes are required):

ffmpeg -f dshow -i video="Integrated Camera" -c copy raw.avi \
-c:v libx264 -preset veryfast -crf 25 encoded.mp4

You may be better off using huffyuv instead of raw video - it'll halve your filesize, but be completely lossless. Use -c:v huffyuv instead of -c copy.

Answer 2

Looks like you can do that using VLC, i.e.

vlc --dshow-vdev="Monitor Webcam" --dshow-size=640x480 -V dummy 
--intf=dummy --dummy-quiet --video-filter=scene --no-audio 
--scene-path=D:\temp --scene-format=jpeg --scene-prefix=snap 
--scene-replace --run-time=1 --scene-ratio=24 "dshow://" vlc://quit

Answer 3

With mplayer/mencoder binary for windows.

Show output from web:

"C:\Program Files (x86)\MPlayer for Windows\mplayer.exe" -tv driver=dshow:device=0:adevice=0:audioid=1:input=2 tv://

Write output:

mencoder.exe -tv driver=dshow:device=0:adevice=0:audioid=1:input=2 tv:// -oac copy -ovc copy -o t.avi