Why would i switch over?

As raspicam is deprecated in Raspbian OS 11 Bullseye, the obvious alternative is libcamera.

What not to use?

The Raspberry PI Zero W / W2

It doesn’t detect all camera types correctly, see forum post “Pi Zero W2 and Bullseye: ** no cameras available **”

How to configure

Preparing hardware

Connecting the camera to the Raspberry PI can be done by using the CSI (Camera Serial Interface) connector.

Testing hardware

When plugging in a monitor to the (mini) HDMI port of the Raspberry Pi you can test the camera by executing a test program.

The monitor will shortly show the video which comes from the connected camera.

This shows if you have correctly installed the camera to the Pi.

libcamera-hello

Preparing software

General update of your Raspberry Pi

sudo apt update && sudo apt -y full-upgrade

Installing libcamera apps

The libcamera-apps help you to make use of the hardware

sudo apt install -y libcamera-apps

Installing VLC

Installing VLC, this can take a while.

sudo apt install -y vlc

Allow VLC to be run as root. This is needed otherwise the streaming can not commence.

sudo sed -i 's/geteuid/getppid/' /usr/bin/vlc

Detecting your camera

Knowing your hardware is key to select the optimal resolution. Detecting your camera is possible.

libcamera-hello --list-cameras

The output could resemble, depending on your hardware;

Available cameras
-----------------
0 : ov5647 [2592x1944] (/base/soc/i2c0mux/i2c@1/ov5647@36)
    Modes: 'SGBRG10_CSI2P' : 640x480 [30.00 fps - (0, 0)/0x0 crop]
                             1296x972 [30.00 fps - (0, 0)/0x0 crop]
                             1920x1080 [30.00 fps - (0, 0)/0x0 crop]
                             2592x1944 [30.00 fps - (0, 0)/0x0 crop]

Creating a streaming script

Setting up stream.sh file

For setting the camera configuration you can set a number of parameters, see documentation

You can use nano to create the stream.sh file

sudo nano ~/stream.sh

Contents of the stream.sh file

You might need to experiment with the resolution, frame-rate and so on.

When needed you can add --vflip and/or --hflip for correcting the view.

#!/bin/bash
libcamera-vid -t 0 --inline --width 1920 --height 1080 --framerate 15 -o - | cvlc -vvv stream:///dev/stdin --sout '#rtp{sdp=rtsp://:8554/stream}' :demux=h264

Enable the script file to be executed:

sudo chmod +x /home/pi/stream.sh

Enabling the script as service

sudo nano /lib/systemd/system/stream.service

And write in it:

[Unit]
Description=Custom Webcam Streaming Service
After=multi-user.target

[Service]
Type=simple
ExecStart=/home/pi/stream.sh
Restart=on-abort

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

Set correct permissions on the service file:

sudo chmod 644 /lib/systemd/system/stream.service

Creating the service on the system

sudo systemctl enable stream.service

Starting the service

sudo service stream start

Checking the status of the service

sudo service stream status

Checking the streaming on your desktop

Start VLC media player and navigate to Media -> Open network Stream or press CTRL+N.

Enter the URL as follows: rtsp://raspberrypi.local:8554/stream