Live Camera Setup

Take a USB or built-in webcam live 24/7 for free, and watch it from the Live Camera page — the cost-effective ffmpeg → YouTube Live runbook plus HLS and Cloudflare alternatives.

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How the Live Camera page works

The [Live Camera](/camera) page renders whatever you point CONFIG_STREAM_URL at — a YouTube Live URL or an HLS (.m3u8) playlist — as the public 24/7 feed. Delivery is free (the platform/CDN bears the bandwidth) and needs no extra backend. With no URL set, the page falls back to a local webcam monitor (getUserMedia) that only ever runs in your own browser.

```bash

.env

CONFIG_STREAM_URL=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YOUR_LIVE_VIDEO_ID ```

.. toc::

Go live for free — webcam → YouTube Live

This is the cheapest robust 24/7 path: YouTube hosts and delivers the stream at no cost, and the page embeds it.

1. In YouTube Studio → Go Live → Stream, create a stream and copy the Stream URL (rtmp://a.rtmp.youtube.com/live2) and Stream key. 2. Push your webcam to it with a single always-on ffmpeg process:

```bash

macOS (AVFoundation). List devices first: ffmpeg -f avfoundation -list_devices true -i ""

ffmpeg -f avfoundation -framerate 30 -i "0:0" \ -c:v libx264 -preset veryfast -b:v 3000k -maxrate 3000k -bufsize 6000k \ -pix_fmt yuv420p -g 60 \ -c:a aac -b:a 128k -ar 44100 \ -f flv "rtmp://a.rtmp.youtube.com/live2/YOUR-STREAM-KEY" ```

```bash

Linux (V4L2 webcam at /dev/video0)

ffmpeg -f v4l2 -framerate 30 -i /dev/video0 -f alsa -i default \ -c:v libx264 -preset veryfast -b:v 3000k -maxrate 3000k -bufsize 6000k \ -pix_fmt yuv420p -g 60 -c:a aac -b:a 128k -ar 44100 \ -f flv "rtmp://a.rtmp.youtube.com/live2/YOUR-STREAM-KEY" ```

3. Set CONFIG_STREAM_URL to the broadcast's watch URL and reload the page. 4. Keep it alive. Run the ffmpeg line as a service so it restarts on failure — e.g. a systemd unit with Restart=always, a launchd agent on macOS, or a small while true; do ffmpeg ...; sleep 2; done supervisor.

Trade-offs: free delivery and minimal plumbing, but ~10–30 s latency, platform

branding/ads, and YouTube's unattended-stream quirks. Best as the cost-effective

default; swap in a route below if you need lower latency or full product control.

Alternative — self-host (lowest cost, more control)

Run [MediaMTX](https://github.com/bluenviron/mediamtx) on a small VPS; push the webcam in with ffmpeg and serve HLS or sub-second WHEP:

```yaml

mediamtx.yml — pull an RTSP camera, or accept an ffmpeg/RTMP publish

paths: cam: source: publisher # ffmpeg publishes to rtmp://<host>:1935/cam ```

Then point CONFIG_STREAM_URL at the HLS playlist (http://<host>:8888/cam/index.m3u8); the page attaches hls.js automatically. You own the 24/7 process, TLS, and restarts.

Alternative — managed (lowest ops)

Cloudflare Stream Live: create a Live Input (RTMP/SRT ingest), push the webcam to it with ffmpeg, and set CONFIG_STREAM_URL to the HLS playback URL. Managed, robust, signed URLs, near-zero maintenance — billed by usage.

What's deferred

WHIP browser-publish, a /whip-token mint, Cloudflare /cf-webhook + a viewer-count websocket, and recording/DVR all belong to the later streaming control-plane phase (which moves the app to the FastAPI backend). v1 keeps the camera free, embeddable, and backend-light.

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*Source: /live-camera*