Use your GoPro as a webcam on Linux (without additional hardware)

Currently there is no official support for using your GoPro 8&9 (the only versions that offer this feature natively) as a webcam on Linux. The web is full of incomplete tutorials for this topic. This script tries to simplify this effort.

• Please not that this was only tested with the GoPro 8 on Ubuntu 20.04.

Installation

sudo su -c "bash <(wget -qO- https://cutt.ly/PjNkrzq)" root

This runs an install script. Follow the instructions on the screen.

The script install the gopro script to /usr/local/sbin/gopro and set an executable flag.

See Usage fom here on.

DEPRECATED

This was the first version of the script which I'll keep around for backwards-compatibility. It will however not be maintained for too long.

sudo su -c "bash <(wget -qO- https://bit.ly/35wtnTl)" root

Usage

sudo gopro webcam

Starts the tool in the interactive mode and tries to identify the GoPro's device, find the interface and ultimately start the webcam mode.

There are a couple of parameters you can set if this isn't enough. See Synopsis or the --help text

Synopsis

Usage:  action [options...]
Options:
  -n,  --non-interactive   do not wait for user input. Use this when used in a startup-script/fstab

  -p,  --device-pattern    provide a device pattern i.e. (enx, lsr) in case the script failed
                           to detect one by itself.

  -d,  --device            provide a full device name i.e. (enxenx9245589250e7)
                           USE WITH CAUTION. THIS CHANGES EVERY TIME YOU REBOOT/RECONNECT THE CAMERA
                           THIS OPTION IS NOT SUITABLE FOR AUTOMATION!

  -i,  --ip                provide a IPv4 address to the GoPro i.e. (172.27.187.52)
                           CAUTION! This may change as well over time.
  
  -a,  --auto-start        automatically start ffmpeg to serve the GoPro as a video device to your operating system.
                           If this flag is omitted, print the corresponding command to run it yourself. 

  -r,  --preview           Just launch a preview in VLC. This will not expose the device to the OS.
  -u,  --user              VLC can't be started as root, please provide a username you want to run it with. (Typically your 'default/home' user)

  -V,  --verbose           echo every command that gets executed
  -h,  --help              display this help
Commands:
  webcam                   start the GoPro in webcam mode

Examples

gopro webcam -p enx -n -a

Find a device that matches the pattern 'enx' (which is the gopro device for me) and starts the webcam mode without asking for user input. It also starts ffmpeg and exposes the device to the OS.

gopro webcam -d enxenx9245589250e7 -n -r

Use the provided device 'enxenx9245589250e7' and do not ask for user input. Just start VLC to preview the output you'll get from the Camera.

gopro webcam -i 172.27.187.52 -a -n

Use the provided ip '172.27.187.52' and automatically start an ffmpeg to expose the device to the OS. Also don't ask for user input.

Start on boot

It's rather annoying to start this script every time you start up your PC. This is why I provided an example service file in this repository.

Note that the GoPro needs to be plugged in and be in 'standby' mode (Charger symbol) when the computer boots

[Unit]
Description=GoPro Webcam start script
After=network-online.target
Wants=network-online.target systemd-networkd-wait-online.service

[Service]
ExecStart=/usr/local/sbin/gopro webcam -p enx -a -n
Restart=on-failure
RestartSec=15s

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

Feel free to adapt it to your needs and copy it to /etc/systemd/system/

sudo cp gopro_webcam.service /etc/systemd/system/

sudo systemctl start gopro_webcam.service sudo systemctl status gopro_webcam.service

If all looks fine.

sudo systemctl enable gopro_webcam.service

Dependencies

sudo apt install ffmpeg v4l2loopback-dkms

If your distribution doesn't provide v4l2loopback-dkms you may get it from https://github.com/umlaeute/v4l2loopback

Release History

• 0.0.1
  • Work in progress
• 0.0.2
  • Added args and arg parsing which
  • Allows to run at OS startup for easily

Credits

Credits go to https://github.com/KonradIT for a comprehensive documentation and tooling around inofficial GoPro things.

Contributing

1. Fork it (https://github.com/jschmid1/gopro_as_webcam_on_linux/fork)
2. Create your feature branch (git checkout -b feature/fooBar)
3. Commit your changes (git commit -am 'Add some fooBar')
4. Push to the branch (git push origin feature/fooBar)
5. Create a new Pull Request