SmartDashboard can't connect to Axis Camera

[jwakeman]

Originally Posted by jarruda

It definitely seems like there's a good amount of flakiness with the WPICameraExtension. I'm disheartened that the author has yet to post; all I would like is the source to this to be able to debug the issue for everyone that's facing it.

It may even be something as simple as a connection timeout that needs to be adjusted - because once the feed is established it remains up without issue, correct?

If someone is aware of who the author is (Brad Miller?), can someone PM him to please take a look at this thread?

EDIT: Or if someone is aware of how to obtain the source to build everything, that works too.

As an attempt at troubleshooting this issue I thought of trying to run ffmpeg (actually ended up using ffplay) directly from the command line to see if I could get the camera to stream that way. I used the following command:

ffplay -f mjpeg -i http://10.0.63.11/mjpg/video.mjpg

When I did this I see a similar output (max_analyze_duration reached) in the command window:

C:\MinGW\bin>ffplay -f mjpeg -i http://10.0.63.11/mjpg/video.mjpg
FFplay version git-N-29181-ga304071, Copyright (c) 2003-2011 the FFmpeg develope
rs
  built on Apr 18 2011 21:32:50 with gcc 4.5.2
  configuration: --disable-static --enable-shared --enable-gpl --enable-version3
 --enable-runtime-cpudetect --enable-memalign-hack --enable-avisynth --enable-bz
lib --enable-frei0r --enable-libopencore-amrnb --enable-libopencore-amrwb --enab
le-libfreetype --enable-libgsm --enable-libmp3lame --enable-libopenjpeg --enable
-librtmp --enable-libschroedinger --enable-libspeex --enable-libtheora --enable-
libvorbis --enable-libvpx --enable-libx264 --enable-libxavs --enable-libxvid --e
nable-zlib --cross-prefix=i686-w64-mingw32- --target-os=mingw32 --arch=x86_32 --
extra-cflags=-I/home/kyle/software/ffmpeg/external-libraries/win32/include --ext
ra-ldflags=-L/home/kyle/software/ffmpeg/external-libraries/win32/lib --pkg-confi
g=pkg-config
  libavutil    50. 40. 1 / 50. 40. 1
  libavcodec   52.120. 0 / 52.120. 0
  libavformat  52.108. 0 / 52.108. 0
  libavdevice  52.  4. 0 / 52.  4. 0
  libavfilter   1. 79. 0 /  1. 79. 0
  libswscale    0. 13. 0 /  0. 13. 0
[mjpeg @ 0057D010] max_analyze_duration reached
[mjpeg @ 0057D010] Estimating duration from bitrate, this may be inaccurate
Input #0, mjpeg, from 'http://10.0.63.11/mjpg/video.mjpg':
  Duration: N/A, bitrate: N/A
    Stream #0.0: Video: mjpeg, yuvj420p, 640x480 [PAR 1:1 DAR 4:3], 25 fps, 25 t
br, 1200k tbn, 25 tbc
[ffsink @ 004A1940] auto-inserting filter 'auto-inserted scaler 0' between the f
ilter 'src' and the filter 'out'
[scale @ 004A1980] w:640 h:480 fmt:yuvj420p -> w:640 h:480 fmt:yuv420p flags:0x4

  74.85 A-V:  0.000 s:79.7 aq=    0KB vq=    0KB sq=    0B f=0/0   /0

The ffplay window comes up and plays video for a few seconds and then freezes! To me this means there is some incompatibility between ffmpeg (at least with the arguments we are supplying) and the Axis camera. This should be a good technique for finding if there are some additional parameters we can pass to ffmpeg to keep a stable stream coming. Any ffmpeg gurus out there that can suggest some params to try?