Alex Hedley - Recording Poker Games

Watching the poker on WPT I thought wouldn't it be cool if I could have the same setup at my home games? Where would I even begin?

So I need a camera to point at the players hole cards (multiple by the number of players), one camera over the table to see the flop, turn and river. Then would I need any more?

So how to I get the camera feeds to my computer?

I could use WebCams, and connect them via a cable - issue with that is my computer isn't in the same room as where I want to play. Is there a wireless one? But won't these be very expensive.

logitech C270 HD Webcam RRP £34.99

logitech C270 HD Webcam

Found them on eBay for ~£15.

Is there an Arduino alternative, yes! You can use a combination of ESP32-CAM, ESP32-CAM-MB, OV2640.

ESP32-CAM, ESP32-CAM-MB, OV2640

~£11 on Amazon but then I also need a micro USB cable and USB plug. (Multiply by the number of devices.)

Arduino

Install the board

https://raw.githubusercontent.com/espressif/arduino-esp32/gh-pages/package_esp32_index.json

Change it in the app to

AI Thinker ESP-32 CAM

Examples | ESP32 | Camera | CameraWebServer

GitHub

Update the SSID and password - put this in a conf file?

https://github.com/espressif/arduino-esp32/blob/e1f14331f173a00a9062f616bc9a62c358b9076f/libraries/ESP32/examples/Camera/CameraWebServer/CameraWebServer.ino#L38-L39

#include "Secrets.h"
const char* ssid = SECRET_SSID;
const char* password = SECRET_PASSWORD;

touch "Secrets.h"

#define SECRET_SSID "foo"
#define SECRET_PASS "bar"

Update the CAMERA to #define CAMERA_MODEL_AI_THINKER // Has PSRAM

https://github.com/espressif/arduino-esp32/blob/e1f14331f173a00a9062f616bc9a62c358b9076f/libraries/ESP32/examples/Camera/CameraWebServer/CameraWebServer.ino#L24C2-L24C2

Upload

Reset (RST)

ESP32-CAM Reset

Check the output for the IP Address, then navigate to it in a browser.

Click on "Start Stream"

Camera Web Server

Click "Stop Stream".

I then used FancyZones in PowerToys to show all the screens together.

Camera Setup

As this part is working I can move onto trying it in a piece of screen recording software.

Download/Install/Start OBS and in the Scene click + and navigate to Browser,

OBS Sources Browser

Update the URL to the one above.

Browser - Properties

Then in the Browser Options bar click on "Interact", this will open up a new window, hopefully load the same as the above browser did, then scroll down and click "Start Stream", once you see a video feed you can re-position this in your Scene.

Browser - Options