[pvrusb2] streaming through windows share

[Mike Isely]

On Mon, 8 Oct 2007, Ryan Penn wrote:

> Hi,
> 
> Is it possible, or can anyone think of anyway /dev/video0 can be
> streamed through windows share?
> 
> For example:
> 1) Share the /dev directory on a linux box.
> 2) On a windows desktop, access the shared /dev directory and
> double-click on 'video0'.
> 3) Start watching a live stream.
> 
> Of course the above doesn't work.
> 
> I am able to stream /dev/video0 through VLC, but i'm wondering if
> there is a way to do it through windows shares.

Ryan:

That's an interesting idea.

However that's really a question for Samba (the entity I presume you are 
using to share the "files" with Windows).  I suspect that this would not 
be likely to work since the concept of devices masquerading as files is 
completely alien to the Windows file sharing world.  Samba can't really 
treat a character device (which is what /dev/video0 is) in the way it 
would probably need to in order to support attached SMB clients.  File 
locking isn't going to work, for example.  Opening the file for writing 
isn't going to work either.  And forget about trying to lseek() such a 
file, which is really a sequential device under the hood.

If you can teach Samba how to export a character device so that it is 
read-only, can't be locked, and can't be seeked, then you might have a 
chance here.  However even that might not be enough because a streaming 
character device doesn't have the concept of a file size and needing to 
know that might also be a showstopper.

  -Mike


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