Communities

Writing
Writing
Codidact Meta
Codidact Meta
The Great Outdoors
The Great Outdoors
Photography & Video
Photography & Video
Scientific Speculation
Scientific Speculation
Cooking
Cooking
Electrical Engineering
Electrical Engineering
Judaism
Judaism
Languages & Linguistics
Languages & Linguistics
Software Development
Software Development
Mathematics
Mathematics
Christianity
Christianity
Code Golf
Code Golf
Music
Music
Physics
Physics
Linux Systems
Linux Systems
Power Users
Power Users
Tabletop RPGs
Tabletop RPGs
Community Proposals
Community Proposals
tag:snake search within a tag
answers:0 unanswered questions
user:xxxx search by author id
score:0.5 posts with 0.5+ score
"snake oil" exact phrase
votes:4 posts with 4+ votes
created:<1w created < 1 week ago
post_type:xxxx type of post
Search help
Notifications
Mark all as read See all your notifications »
Q&A

Post History

60%
+1 −0
Q&A With a V4L2-compatible webcam, how to see its video feed for the purpose of adjusting aiming?

I have ordered (but am still waiting for it to arrive) a USB-connected webcam that is supposed to be V4L2 compatible. Once it arrives, I'm obviously going to want to mount it such that it provides...

1 answer  ·  posted 2y ago by Canina‭  ·  last activity 2y ago by Quasímodo‭

#1: Initial revision by user avatar Canina‭ · 2021-08-28T08:07:29Z (over 2 years ago)
With a V4L2-compatible webcam, how to see its video feed for the purpose of adjusting aiming?
I have ordered (but am still waiting for it to arrive) a USB-connected webcam that is supposed to be V4L2 compatible.

Once it arrives, I'm obviously going to want to mount it such that it provides a reasonable picture with minimal ongoing adjustments. I imagine that the easiest way to do so is to simply run some application that shows me what the camera is seeing, and then adjust the camera as needed to get a good result.

The system in question is currently running Debian 10/Buster, but upgrading to 11/Bullseye is on my to-do list, so a solution should ideally work with both of those, preferably without having to download and install out-of-repository applications on either (so any tools suggested should be in both the buster and bullseye Debian repositories).

I found [qv4l2](https://packages.debian.org/buster/qv4l2) ("test bench application for video4linux devices") which looks somewhat promising for making adjustments, but I haven't found anything that will let me actually see what the webcam is seeing.

How can I accomplish the latter?