How to configure rpicamera to runOnDemand?

[suomi35]

Question

I have a Raspberry Pi zero 2 W setup, running with a camera. It works fine with the following config, taken from the example:

paths:
  cam:
    source: rpiCamera
    runOnReady: >
      gst-launch-1.0
      rtspclientsink name=s location=rtsp://localhost:$RTSP_PORT/cam_with_audio
      rtspsrc location=rtsp://127.0.0.1:$RTSP_PORT/$MTX_PATH latency=0 ! rtph264depay ! s.
      alsasrc device=hw:0 ! opusenc bitrate=16000 ! s.
    runOnReadyRestart: yes
  cam_with_audio:

However, I don't want the camera to stream when not requested. (It heats up the rPi and adds unwanted traffic to my network.)
I have tried to modify the config with variations of sourceOnDemand/runOnDemand, but I get the following error:

ERR: 'runOnDemand' and 'runOnUnDemand' can be used only when source is 'publisher'

Does anyone have a working on-demand config that works for rpicamera?

[suomi35]

I think I may try to solve this via the API; adding/deleting a path on demand...

[zinahe]

Hi,

Did you make any progress on this issue? I am also running a Raspberry Pi zero 2W setup, which is running hot 24/7 even when there are no clients connected. It would be ideal if video capture only happens when there is demand for a stream.

Cheers,

[aler9]

no API is needed, there's option sourceOnDemand that does exactly what you want:

paths:
  cam:
    source: rpiCamera
    sourceOnDemand: true

[aler9]

@suomi35 the Raspberry Pi camera can be enabled and disabled on-demand by using sourceOnDemand: true, but the problem of your configuration is that gst-launch-1.0 is constantly reading the video stream in order to add audio, therefore the camera is always in use. Move gst-launch-1.0 inside the runOnDemand section of cam_with_audio and enable sourceOnDemand inside cam:

paths:
  cam:
    source: rpiCamera
    sourceOnDemand: true

  cam_with_audio:
    runOnDemand: >
      gst-launch-1.0
      rtspclientsink name=s location=rtsp://localhost:$RTSP_PORT/cam_with_audio
      rtspsrc location=rtsp://127.0.0.1:$RTSP_PORT/cam latency=0 ! rtph264depay ! s.
      alsasrc device=hw:0 ! opusenc bitrate=16000 ! s.
    runOnDemandRestart: yes

[suomi35]

@aler9 thank you for this, however now I get the following error:
ERR: json: cannot unmarshal bool into Go struct field alias.paths of type string

[aler9]

you didn't paste the indentation properly. For additional information, take a look at the README and into the configuration file, where all parameters are commented.

[suomi35]

I was initially suspicious of that as well, but I believe the formatting is correct.

[aler9]

the second runOnDemand must be runOnDemandRestart:

paths:
  cam:
    source: rpiCamera
    sourceOnDemand: true

  cam_with_audio:
    runOnDemand: >
      gst-launch-1.0
      rtspclientsink name=s location=rtsp://localhost:$RTSP_PORT/cam_with_audio
      rtspsrc location=rtsp://127.0.0.1:$RTSP_PORT/cam latency=0 ! rtph264depay ! s.
      alsasrc device=hw:0 ! opusenc bitrate=16000 ! s.
    runOnDemandRestart: yes

[suomi35]

'reading' how does it even work?!
Thank you for pointing that out. It works just fine now 😄