tested with
- RasPi 3B with Raspbian Jessie, IPv4 address 192.168.2.104
- Ubuntu 16.04 client, IPv4 address 192.168.2.108
raspivid options used:
| option | explanation |
|---|---|
| -pf baseline | use baseline profile (no B-frames) which reduces delay |
| -b 1000000 | bitrate (1MBit/s) |
| -g 30 | GOP (group of pictures) size of 30, i.e. send an I-frame every second |
| -ih | inline headers: send SPS and PPS headers with each I-frame |
live TCP streaming on RasPi
RasPi is listening (-l) and keeps (-k) listening after a TCP session terminated. RasPi’s own (local) IPv4 address is specified.
pi@raspberrypi:~ $ raspivid -t 0 -n -b 1000000 -g 30 -ih -pf baseline -w 640 -h 480 -fps 30 -l -o tcp://192.168.2.104:1234
Drawback: after client terminates, raspivid terminates too. So you might want to wrap it with an endless bash script loop
pi@raspberrypi:~ $ while :; do raspivid -t 0 -n -b 1000000 -g 30 -ih -pf baseline -w 640 -h 480 -fps 30 -l -o tcp://192.168.2.104:1234 ; done
remote client
Now, on remote client, vlc is opening and terminating TCP stream:
$ vlc -v tcp/h264://192.168.2.104:1234
UDP streaming remote client
Start remote client first, otherwise it could miss the H.264 SPS/PPS which are needed for decoding the stream. Client is waiting for incoming packets on UDP socket:
$ vlc -vvv udp/h264://@:1234
RasPi
RasPi is pushing UDP packets to the client.
without nc
pi@raspberrypi:~ $ raspivid -t 0 -n -b 1000000 -g 30 -ih -pf baseline -w 640 -h 480 -fps 30 -o udp://192.168.2.108:1234
while client port is not available, you see error messages like mmal: Failed to write buffer data (3294 from 14539)- aborting but they do not do any harm.
with nc
I think, this is no longer needed.
pi@raspberrypi:~ $ raspivid -t 0 -n -b 1000000 -g 30 -ih -pf baseline -w 640 -h 480 -fps 30 -o – | nc -p 1904 -u 192.168.2.108 1234
passing video to
pi@raspberrypi:~ $ raspivid -t 10000 -n -b 1000000 -g 30 -ih -pf baseline -w 1920 -h 1080 -fps 30 -o – | gst-launch-1.0 fdsrc ! ‘video/x-h264,profile=baseline, width=1920, height=1080’ ! h264parse ! mp4mux ! filesink location=test.mp4
RTSP streaming
there is a session concept + time stamping (RTP) included. several transport protocols are possible: UDP, TCP and HTTP tunnelled.
RTP/UDP
# raspivid -t 0 -n -b 1000000 -g 30 -ih -pf baseline -w 640 -h 480 -fps 30 -o – | cvlc -v stream:///dev/stdin –sout ‘#rtp{sdp=rtsp://:8554/}’ :demux=h264
$ vlc -v rtsp://192.168.2.104:8554/
further steps
RTSP streaming has many more options like:
- http tunnelling to stream through a firewall
- specifying user and password for stream protection
there are alternative RTSP streaming servers out like:
- live555
- gst-rtsp-server