What steps are needed to stream RTSP from FFmpeg

Question

What steps are needed to stream RTSP from FFmpeg   Streaming UDP is not a problem  but as I want to stream to mobile devices which can natively read RTSP streams  I couldn t find any setup which tells what exactly is needed  Do I need an RTSP streaming server like LIVE555 or can I use FFmpeg only   My Command   ffmpeg -i space mp4 -vcodec libx264 -tune zerolatency -crf 18 -f rtsp -muxdelay 0 1 rtsp   192 168 1 200 1234   I get an Input Output error   Do I need a SDP description to use RTSP  And if yes where do I have to put it

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FWIW  I was able to setup a local RTSP server for testing purposes using simple-rtsp-server and ffmpeg following these steps   Create a configuration file for the RTSP server called rtsp-simple-server yml with this single line  protocols   tcp    Start the RTSP server as a Docker container    docker run --rm -it -v  PWD rtsp-simple-server yml  rtsp-simple-server yml -p 8554 8554 aler9 rtsp-simple-server   Use ffmpeg to stream a video file  looping forever  to the server    ffmpeg -re -stream loop -1 -i test mp4 -f rtsp -rtsp transport tcp rtsp   localhost 8554 live stream    Once you have that running you can use ffplay to view the stream    ffplay -rtsp transport tcp rtsp   localhost 8554 live stream  Note that simple-rtsp-server can also handle UDP streams  i s o  TCP  but that s tricky running the server as a Docker container

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An alternative that I used instead of FFServer was Red5 Pro  on Ubuntu  I used this line   ffmpeg -f pulse -i default -f video4linux2 -thread queue size 64 -framerate 25 -video size 640x480 -i  dev video0 -pix fmt yuv420p -bsf v h264 mp4toannexb -profile v baseline -level v 3 2 -c v libx264 -x264-params keyint 120 scenecut 0 -c a aac -b a 128k -ar 44100 -f rtsp -muxdelay 0 1 rtsp   localhost 8554 live paul

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You can use FFserver to stream a video using RTSP   Just change console syntax to something like this   ffmpeg -i space mp4 -vcodec libx264 -tune zerolatency -crf 18 http   localhost 1234 feed1 ffm   Create a ffserver config file  sample  where you declare HTTPPort  RTSPPort and SDP stream  Your config file could look like this  some important stuff might be missing    HTTPPort 1234 RTSPPort 1235   lt Feed feed1 ffm gt          File  tmp feed1 ffm         FileMaxSize 2M         ACL allow 127 0 0 1  lt  Feed gt    lt Stream test1 sdp gt      Feed feed1 ffm     Format rtp     Noaudio     VideoCodec libx264     AVOptionVideo flags  global header     AVOptionVideo me range 16     AVOptionVideo qdiff 4     AVOptionVideo qmin 10     AVOptionVideo qmax 51     ACL allow 192 168 0 0 192 168 255 255  lt  Stream gt    With such setup you can watch the stream with i e  VLC by typing   rtsp   192 168 0 xxx 1235 test1 sdp   Here is the FFserver documentation

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Another streaming command I ve had good results with is piping the ffmpeg output to vlc to create a stream   If you don t have these installed  you can add them  sudo apt install vlc ffmpeg  In the example I use an mpeg transport stream  ts  over http  instead of rtsp   I ve tried both  but the http ts stream seems to work glitch-free on my playback devices  I m using a video capture HDMI gt USB device that sets itself up on the video4linux2 driver as input   Piping through vlc must be CPU-friendly  because my old dual-core Pentium CPU is able to do the real-time encoding with no dropped frames   I ve also had audio-sync issues with some of the other methods  where this method always has perfect audio-sync  You will have to adjust the command for your device or file   If you re using a file as input  you won t need all that v4l2 and alsa stuff   Here s the ffmpeg vlc command  ffmpeg -thread queue size 1024 -f video4linux2 -input format mjpeg -i  dev video0 -r 30 -f alsa -ac 1 -thread queue size 1024 -i hw 1 0 -acodec aac -vcodec libx264 -preset ultrafast -crf 18 -s hd720 -vf format yuv420p -profile v main -threads 0 -f mpegts - vlc -I dummy - --sout   std access http mux ts dst  8554    For example  lets say your server PC IP is 192 168 0 10  then the stream can be played by this command  ffplay http   192 168 0 10 8554  or vlc http   192 168 0 10 8554

[ffmpeg] What steps are needed to stream RTSP from FFmpeg?

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