Stream camera output to a Linux machine

A HDMI capture card and an HDMI cable is all you need to stream the video output of a camera to a Linux machine running the VLC media player. This can come in useful when you need to take screenshots of the camera's interface or record the camera activity.

Here are the parts you need:

• HDMI video capture card (like this one)
• HDMI cable with a regular HDMI connector (to connect to the video capture card) on one end and an HDMI connector matching your camera on the other end

On the Linux machine, install VLC using the default package manager. Connect the camera to the machine using the HDMI cable and the capture card as show on the diagram below.

Run the ls /dev/video* command. You should see a new entry in a list of connected devices. Assuming that there is only one video device (that is, the camera) is connected to the machine, it will be shown as /dev/video0.

Now, turn on the camera, and enable HDMI output if necessary. Run the following command to stream the video feed to VLC:

vlc v4l2:///dev/video0

To take a screenshot of a menu, switch to the menu system in your camera, and choose Video > Take Snapshot in VLC.