Installation

Install from PyPI

pip install cv2-enumerate-cameras

Quick Start

Run as a Script

A simple command-line script is provided to enumerate all cameras:

lscam

Or run the module directly:

python -m cv2_enumerate_cameras

Integrate into Your Project

To enumerate cameras inside your code:

from cv2_enumerate_cameras import enumerate_cameras

for camera_info in enumerate_cameras():
    print(camera_info)

By default, enumerate_cameras() is called with the parameter CAP_ANY, which instructs cv2_enumerate_cameras to probe all supported backends when enumerating cameras. Example output:

1400: 2K USB Camera (2BDF:02A5)
700: 2K USB Camera (2BDF:02A5)
701: OBS Virtual Camera

These seemingly unusual indices are intentional: OpenCV encodes the backend ID into the high digits of the index. For example, 701 indicates the second camera (1) on the DSHOW backend (700).

To explicitly use a specific backend:

import cv2
from cv2_enumerate_cameras import enumerate_cameras

for camera_info in enumerate_cameras(cv2.CAP_MSMF):
    print(camera_info)

Output:

0: 2K USB Camera (2BDF:02A5)
1: ...
2: ...

Once you have found the target camera, you can create a cv2.VideoCapture by its index and backend properties.

cap = cv2.VideoCapture(camera_info.index, camera_info.backend)

When using CAP_ANY, the backend argument can be omitted. But for robust behavior, explicitly passing it is strongly recommended.

Supported Backends

Not all OpenCV backends support camera enumeration. Use the following snippet to print the names of the supported backends:

from cv2.videoio_registry import getBackendName
from cv2_enumerate_cameras import supported_backends

for backend in supported_backends:
    print(getBackendName(backend))

Windows:

• Microsoft Media Foundation (CAP_MSMF)
• DirectShow (CAP_DSHOW)

Linux:

• GStreamer (CAP_GSTREAMER)
• V4L/V4L2 (CAP_V4L2)

macOS:

• AVFoundation (CAP_AVFOUNDATION)

CameraInfo Object

enumerate_cameras() returns a list of CameraInfo objects:

def enumerate_cameras(apiPreference: int = CAP_ANY) -> list[CameraInfo]:
    ...

• CameraInfo.index: Camera index for the selected backend
• CameraInfo.name: Human-readable device name
• CameraInfo.path: Device path (macOS: uniqueID);
• CameraInfo.vid: USB Vendor ID (if available);
• CameraInfo.pid: USB Product ID (if available);
• CameraInfo.backend: OpenCV backend used for enumeration.

Examples

Automatically Select a Camera by VID/PID

This example finds a camera using VID/PID and creates a VideoCapture:

import cv2
from cv2_enumerate_cameras import enumerate_cameras

# Search for a specific camera by VID and PID
def find_camera(vid, pid, apiPreference=cv2.CAP_ANY):
    for i in enumerate_cameras(apiPreference):
        if i.vid == vid and i.pid == pid:
            return cv2.VideoCapture(i.index, i.backend)
    raise RuntimeError('Camera not found!')

# Example: Find the camera with VID 0x04F2 and PID 0xB711
cap = find_camera(0x04F2, 0xB711)

# Capture and display frames
while True:
    ok, frame = cap.read()
    if not ok:
        break
    cv2.imshow('frame', frame)
    if cv2.waitKey(1) == ord('q'):
        break