Capturing webcam stream in Python using OpenCV - Need help

Question

I'm running Python2.7 on Arch Linux. I installed OpenCV via Pacman.

The Python code I'm using is:

import cv

capture = cv.CaptureFromCAM(0)

Very simple. All I'm trying to do, for now, is get Python access to my webcam. But that above code outputs:

[user@host python]$ python2.7 webcam.py 
VIDIOC_QUERYMENU: Invalid argument
VIDIOC_QUERYMENU: Invalid argument
VIDIOC_QUERYMENU: Invalid argument

My webcam works fine with Cheese (linux webcam program). So, presumable, there shouldn't be any driver/module issues...

Any ideas?

have you tried with python 2.6? I heard rumours saying that there may be problems with 2.7... just rumours... — meduz
– meduz, Commented Jan 31, 2011 at 10:05

Community · Accepted Answer · 2017-05-23 12:04:12Z

3

It appears that you're not passing .CaptureFromCAM() the right argument. If there is only one camera, you can do something like this:

    capture = cv.CaptureFromCAM(-1)

The -1 tells it to just grab whatever camera it can find (see this).

CommunityBot

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answered Mar 10, 2011 at 20:10

J. Taylor

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