Streaming Video from AR Drone

Question

I am trying to stream video from my ar drone but it is not working. I have installed ffmpeg version 2.6, am using Ubuntu 14.04, node.js and the ar-drone npm module. I am also using version 1.0 of the ar drone. I was told that I need to use 2.0 because that is what the modules were built using but I would rather not purchase a new one if I don't have to.Below is the code that I am using

var arDrone = require('ar-drone');
var http    = require('http');

console.log('Connecting png stream ...');

var pngStream = arDrone.createClient().getPngStream();

var lastPng;
pngStream
  .on('error', console.log)
  .on('data', function(pngBuffer) {
    lastPng = pngBuffer;
  });

var server = http.createServer(function(req, res) {
  if (!lastPng) {
    res.writeHead(503);
    res.end('Did not receive any png data yet.');
    return;
  }

  res.writeHead(200, {'Content-Type': 'image/png'});
  res.end(lastPng);
});

server.listen(8080, function() {
  console.log('Serving latest png on port 8080 ...');
});

When I run it and go to http://localhost:8080/ in my browser I get the error message "Did not receive any png data yet." Is this because I am using version 1.0 of the drone??

I don't think node-ar-drone is well-tested with drone version 1.0. Does everything besides the PNG stream work? — John Wiseman, Apr 24 '15 at 05:38
It looks like maybe version 1 of the AR.Drone used UDP for the video stream, while version 2 uses TCP. It's a long shot, but maybe you could try to convert the node-ar-drone code to use UDP. — John Wiseman, Apr 24 '15 at 17:26

score 0 · Answer 1 · edited May 23 '17 at 12:21

AR.Drone 1.0 handles video differently from the 2.0 version of AR.Drone. According to the AR.Drone Developer's Guide,

1.0 uses a custom Parrot format called "P264"; 2.0 uses standard H264 (section 7.2 of the Guide).
1.0 streams video over UDP; 2.0 streams over TCP (section 2.10 of the Guide).

You will not be able to use the node-ar-drone library to access the video stream without a significant amount of work:

Change the video stream handling to use UDP.
Change the video decoding logic. P264 is almost H264, and there are reports that while fffmpeg can't handle P264, ffplay can. Or maybe you could start with a javascript H264 decoder and modify it according to Parrot's description of the P264 format (section 7.2.3 of the Guide).

But really, almost certainly the best option is to simply buy an AR.Drone 2.0 (available new for around $300 as of April 2015) and use the existing code that is supported and used by other people.

Streaming Video from AR Drone

1 Answers1