Using ffmpeg to generate RTSP from webcam

Question

I want to get the camera video stream and broadcast it with RTSP on Windows.

I can play the camera video with

> ffplay -f dshow -i "HP HD Webcam"

But if I try start the stream with

> ffmpeg -f rtsp -i video="HP HD Webcam" rtsp://localhost:8888/live.sdp

The stream does not start. The console shows

ffmpeg version ...
configuration: ...
libavutil      55.  6.100 / 55.  6.100
libavcodec     57. 15.100 / 57. 15.100
libavformat    57. 14.100 / 57. 14.100
libavdevice    57.  0.100 / 57.  0.100
libavfilter     6. 15.100 /  6. 15.100
libswscale      4.  0.100 /  4.  0.100
libswresample   2.  0.101 /  2.  0.101
libpostproc    54.  0.100 / 54.  0.100

And if I use ctrl+c to break it, an error shows

video=HP HD Webcam: Immediate exit requested

How can I properly stream the camera to RTSP with ffmpeg?

Answer 1

First, you have to create an RTSP server, then Push Video stream from Webcam to RTSP server. once server is up, Read the Stream from RTSP server. Follow the steps below in Ubuntu:

Open Terminal and execute following

$ sudo apt-get install ffmpeg
$ sudo apt-get install v4l-utils

Step 1: Open a new terminal and Download SimpleRTSP server package:

 $ wget https://github.com/aler9/rtsp-simple-server/releases/download/v0.16.0/rtsp-simple-server_v0.16.0_linux_amd64.tar.gz

Extract downloaded package:

$ tar -xzvf rtsp-simple-server_v0.16.0_linux_amd64.tar.gz

Step 2: Check for your internal IP address with following command:

$ ifconfig

Copy an IP address eg. 192.168.XXX.XXX

Step 3: Now, Start RTSP Server

$ rtspServer=192.168.XXX.XXX:rtsp://192.168.XXX.XXX:8554/webCamStream ./rtsp-simple-server

(Add your IP address in the above command)

Step 4: Open a new terminal

$ v4l2-ctl --list-devices

(Ensure you have a webcam plugged in and installed > sudo apt-get install v4l-utils) This will give a list of all the camera devices plugged into your system eg.

UVC Camera (046d:0825) (usb-0000:00:14.0-1):
    /dev/video0
    /dev/video1

Step 5: You can now, push video stream from webcam to RTSP server:

$ sudo ffmpeg -f v4l2 -framerate 24 -video_size 480x480 -i /dev/video0 -f rtsp -rtsp_transport tcp rtsp://192.168.XXX.XXX:8554/webCamStream

(add your IP address, port, and stream name in the above command)

Step 6: Last step is to check and view your RTSP feed: open a new terminal and check with the following command

$ ffplay "rtsp://192.168.XXX.XXX:8554/webCamStream"