Convert rtsp video stream to http stream

Question

I have the rtsp URL for a live video stream which I would like to access as an HTTP stream. Can someone please tell me if there are any components out there which I can put on my server to do this?

I do not have any idea how I can implement this. Would appreciate a heads up.

Thanks.

Answer 1

I would say that your best bet is to use either FFmpeg or VLC. Both are open source software and are widely used among hobbyists and also as a part of multiple different services. Also both can take in RTSP streams and create an HTTP stream (with live transcoding if needed).

FFmpeg's RTSP support has improved as of lately, but IMO VLC is way better at the moment (May 2010). Check the documentation on the web sites for experimenting with the command-line parameters for finding the required ones to match your needs. FFmpeg and VLC are very flexible and you can do a whole lot of stuff with them in addition to proxying from RTSP stream to HTTP.

FFmpeg: http://www.ffmpeg.org/

VLC: http://www.videolan.org/vlc/

Answer 2

the command mentioned below takes in a rtsp stream and throws out a httpstream having a flv...

vlc -I http -vv camURL ":sout=#transcode{vcodec=h264,vb=0,scale=0,acodec=mp4a,ab=128,channels=2,samplerate=44100}:http{mux=ffmpeg{mux=flv},dst=addr:availablePort}"