RTSP Video Streaming

Prerequisites

• Ubuntu 16.04
• GCC (gcc and g++) ver. 5.4
• USB camera (v4l2 compatible)

Getting Started

Clone the repository:

git clone https://github.com/ramilsafnab1996/rtsp-video-server.git
git submodule update --init
cd rtsp-video-server

Dependencies

Install the dependencies (using apt package manager):

sudo apt-get install liblog4cpp5-dev

Install the dependencies from the contrib:

cd contrib
# Live555 video streaming server framework
cd live && ./genMakefiles linux-64bit && make -j$(nproc)
cd ../..

The most time- and nerve-consuming part, installing FFMpeg …:

cd into the scripts directory (prepared bash scripts for installation):

cd scripts && chmod +x *
./install_ffmpeg_with_deps.sh
cd ..

Build

mkdir build
cd build
cmake -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=RELEASE ..
make -j$(nproc)

Run

Edit config.yaml for your needs.

Then you can run the server:

./video_server ../config.yaml

Testing

For simple testing whether the server works or not you can use MPlayer (preferred) or VLC:

sudo apt install mplayer
mplayer -benchmark rtsp://<ip address>:8554/webcam_0

Limitations

• Currently there is no support for the already compressed raw camera formats (e.g. MJPEG). In this case we have 2 options: send the data as it is (e.g. MJPEG stream) or transcode the original video stream into the format we need (e.g. H.264).
• Lack of control of camera parameters (fps, resolution, etc.) at runtime (no API for that is provided).
• RTSP multicast broadcasting is not supported (It can be implemted using Live555 API).
• SSL is not supported (see SRTP).