On Linux, it is possible to send the video stream to a v4l2 loopback device, so that the Android device can be opened like a webcam by any v4l2-capable tool.
The module v4l2loopback
must be installed:
sudo apt install v4l2loopback-dkms
To create a v4l2 device:
sudo modprobe v4l2loopback
This will create a new video device in /dev/videoN
, where N
is an integer
(more options are available
to create several devices or devices with specific IDs).
To list the enabled devices:
# requires v4l-utils package
v4l2-ctl --list-devices
# simple but might be sufficient
ls /dev/video*
To start scrcpy
using a v4l2 sink:
scrcpy --v4l2-sink=/dev/videoN
scrcpy --v4l2-sink=/dev/videoN --no-display # disable mirroring window
(replace N
with the device ID, check with ls /dev/video*
)
Once enabled, you can open your video stream with a v4l2-capable tool:
ffplay -i /dev/videoN
vlc v4l2:///dev/videoN # VLC might add some buffering delay
For example, you could capture the video within OBS or within your video conference tool.
By default, there is no video buffering, to get the lowest possible latency.
As for the video display, it is possible to add buffering to delay the v4l2 stream:
scrcpy --v4l2-buffer=300 # add 300ms buffering for v4l2 sink