Almost three years ago I wrote an article on this blog titled Video Streaming with Flask, in which I presented a very modest streaming server that used a Flask generator view function to stream a Motion-JPEG stream to web browsers. My intention with that article was to show a simple, yet practical use of streaming responses, a not very well known feature in Flask.

That article is extremely popular, but not because it teaches how to implement streaming responses, but because a lot of people want to implement streaming video servers. Unfortunately, my focus when I wrote the article was not on creating a robust video server, so I frequently get questions and requests for advice from those who want to use the video server for a real application and quickly find its limitations. So today I'm going to revisit my streaming video server and describe a few improvements I've made to it.

I'm sure by now you know that I have released a book and a couple of videos on Flask in cooperation with O'Reilly Media. While the coverage of the Flask framework in these is fairly complete, there are a small number of features that for one reason or another did not get mentioned much, so I thought it would be a good idea to write articles about them here.

This article is dedicated to streaming, an interesting feature that gives Flask applications the ability to provide large responses efficiently partitioned in small chunks, potentially over a long period of time. To illustrate the topic I'm going to show you how to build a live video streaming server!

A few weeks ago NASA started streaming live video of Earth from cameras installed aboard the International Space Station (ISS), and some of the views are nothing short of breathtaking. If you haven't seen this stream yet, then stop reading and go watch it now. Keep in mind that you have a 50% chance of catching the dark part of the planet, so if all you find is an all black image then try again a little later. You can always check isstracker.com to find out over which region the ISS is over and if it is day or night there.

I thought it would be a cool idea to have this stream running constantly on a screen by my desk. Something I can keep an eye on while I work, so that I can catch the most interesting views without having to have it constantly taking space on my main computer's screens.

In this short article I'm going to show you how to play the ISS live stream on your Raspberry Pi.

It's been a while since I wrote the article on streaming video from the Raspberry Pi using MJPG-Streamer. Since I published that article I have received several comments and questions regarding issues building MJPG-Streamer, so in this short post I'm giving you revised build instructions.

I've been excited about the Raspberry Pi Camera Module since it was announced last year, so I went and ordered one from Element14 as soon as it came on sale.

I have a few ideas for cool things to build with this camera and I will be blogging about them as I get to develop them. Today, I will show you how to transform the Raspberry Pi into a webcam server. You will be able to watch the video stream from the camera on any device that has a web browser. And yes, this includes the iPad/iPhone and Android devices!