RTSP protocol for video feeds

I've got a url that works in SmartThings but not in actiontiles any ideas?(looks like this

rtsp://admin:@198.167.1.120/user=admin_password=_channel=1_stream=0.sdp

you can use also the snapshot option and refresh every x seconds...My foscam camera supports it...

How do i set this up . i have a foscam too . please help with the step.

Every Foscam model is different Mathannath.

The "iSpy" software database can possibly help find the URL and parameters to use to get JPG snapshots from your camera, and/or MJPEG streaming:  http://www.ispyconnect.com/sources.aspx

Otherwise, the Android App: tinyCam Monitor Pro can possibly connect directly to your camera (even RTSP feeds) and serve them on your LAN as MJPEG. Details here: https://support.actiontiles.com/communities/12/topics/3441-tinycam-pro-android-app-web-server-stream-rtsp-and-wyze-cam-to-actiontiles

how did you get an rtsp link to work in smartthings ?

RTSP is under consideration, but we have not done enough research yet to know how complicated (or simple!) it might be. There is absolutely no timeframe in mind for this.

From my knowledge so far, this may largely be a function of what each browser natively supports. Please let me know if you have tested any specific devices, OS, browsers, that natively (i.e., no plug-in) accept and stream an RSTP:// URL.

In the meantime, the workaround is to use a transcoder like Blue Iris or VLC, or possibly a cloud based "transcoder as a service" (I found a good service-website, but goshdarnit, I've lost their name!).

Do you have a VLC tutorial?

VLC is pretty complex, so we haven't prepared a Tutorial of any sort yet.

The actual functions needed for some cameras might be relatively simple, though, so start by skimming the documentation:  https://wiki.videolan.org/Documentation:Streaming_HowTo/Command_Line_Examples/#HTTP_streaming

Hi, I just try an EZVIZ camera CS-CV246 (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07CXRDMLK/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o09_s01?ie=UTF8&psc=1). It goes well over VLC media but using a RTSP address (rtsp://admin:device verification code@device IP address on the LAN:554/H.264) Please could you say me how to link this one to my Action Tiles Pannel??

I can't try it, but I thought Fully Kiosk full version would stream rtsp.

I am very interested in this as well. Need to look into the VLC option as I have 2 new cameras that will only support RTSP.

@Terry, Did you mean VLC and not VNC?

@Justin, your best bet would be to use Blue Iris as it's pretty straight forward.

just to confirm...blue iris will just allow to see the streaming using their software..there is no way to redirect it to actiontiles right?

I think Blue Iris will do transcoding into a format compatible with ActionTiles, but let's see what the experts say...

I can only get streaming going using Firefox on my Android 6.0.1 tablet. http://blueirisservername:port/mjpg/@outside/

Replace @outside if you don't have camera groups to the shortname of your specific camera

Which is too bad because Fully is a better browser for Kiosk related setups.

@kars85 can you then show it inside ActionTiles?

Yes - works fine. All I'm doing within Actiontiles is viewing the mjpg stream the Blue Iris webserver pumps out.

@kars85 You need a pc running all the time the blue iris software correct?

I can confirm that blue iris does work with ActionTiles. I have 4 of them showing up on fully kiosk.

@sergiovasferreira - blue iris does have to be running on a pc.

Just paging through the options in Fully ("Fully Browser Kiosk Lockdown"), it has a toggle to enable RTSP video streaming. I don't have an RTSP stream to test with ... has anyone tested an RTSP address in a plain Fully page (i.e., outside of ActionTiles)?

If this works, then we might be able to enable RTSP ... for Fully and future browsers that handle RTSP directly.

I got this working in fully on my LG v20, webview has to be enabled/installed or so on android 

@Newyork 

To confirm...are you saying that you are using Fully Kiosk Browser and it displays an rtsp stream?

I think I tried using a shortcut rather than a direct video feed suggested in smartthings forum but it is not stable in the sense that it works first few times but not now on my phone , actually when it works you can see webview loading then the stream, could be android 7 issue

I tried...but using rtsp://IP Address ....the browser just cannot find it...

Not sure if I did something wrong.

It would be gone if someone else could try.

rtsp://IP Address ....the browser just cannot find it...

Currently, if a plain browser tab (outside of ActionTiles) can't find and display the feed, then we can't proceed any further.

So let's hope someone has this part working at least. 🙏

You're up to 63 votes, how many do you guys need to start implementation?  Also, I don't get why we can't just use plug-ins in the browser.  ActionTiles is web based, so why not just let the plug-ins do their thing within the tiles? A VLC plugin on a web page will be able to support RTSP with no problems at all. Problem solved, no?  If I copy and paste the code below to a new text file, rename to .html and open in my browser it works fine.

<html>
 <body marginwidth="0" marginheight="0" topmargin="0" leftmargin="0">
  <object classid="clsid:9BE31822-FDAD-461B-AD51-BE1D1C159921"
     codebase="http://downloads.videolan.org/pub/videolan/vlc/latest/win32/axvlc.cab"
        width="704" height="480" id="vlc" events="True">
   <param name="Src" value="rtsp://[username]:[password]@[url]:[port]/[path_to_stream]" />
   <param name="ShowDisplay" value="True" />
   <param name="AutoLoop" value="False" />
   <param name="AutoPlay" value="False" />
  </object>
 </body>
</html>

Thanks for the code snip... It will give us some ideas to further research.

We have thousands of users and lots of feedback that isn't posted on the Forum. Topic Votes are only 1 of a dozen factors we juggle and analyze to determine our development plans.

63 Votes out of thousands of customers is negligible.

We know video is important and are optimistic that when we are ready to focus on specific approaches, some will be practical for implementation.

When are Feature Ideas in the Forum going to be implemented?

All feature requests will be considered and prioritized internally.

Of course, bug fixes tend to get priority, especially if they impact a lot of customers and don't have a work-around.

• We super appreciate your feedback and bug discoveries! However, ActionTiles is not obligated to accommodate any feature requests.
  
• We do not publish a "road-map" or "ETAs" so that we avoid making promises and imposing deadlines that we might not be able to live up to.
  
• Please do not clutter a Feature Request with "are there any updates or ETA on this, please" comments!!! We will ALWAYS post any updates we have on the post. If the post doesn't have an update that means ... there is no news. Thank-you so very much for your enthusiasm and patience.
  
  
• The only ways to possibly influence a Feature Request or Bug Fix are to:
  • (a) Add Votes to the Topic
  • (b) Add helpful contributory comments that help us understand the best way to refine and implement the request, such as creative ideas, reasons "why" you support the Feature, how badly the bug is affecting you, etc. 

Has anyone had any luck with this?  I want to purchase ActionTiles but would only do so If I can get this to work.

Hi Mike,

Please see this KB Entry: When are Feature Ideas in the Forum going to be implemented?

In other words: We have a hundred Feature requests and only been in the market 2 months. Please add your VOTEs to this Topic (in case you haven't already), and that will help us decide to prioritize.

We are definitely interested in doing this; so I hope you understand that we are not dismissing the idea ... just prudently allocating our limited resources to more popular requests, many of which are less complicated to implement.

VIDEO IS HARD!

Of course, we still hope you purchase a License. The more we sell, the sooner we can ramp up Feature implementation!

Everyone is asking about RTSP etc, but why dont you guys just use MJPEG stream, works perfectly in Firefox on any device. And pretty much with any camera. Of course you need to do a research on your own and find out the stream path for your camera. So may be reading manuals will help you, camera forums good too. And, in fact Blue Iris has been working on this for years so they can include thousands of urls for different cams...finding it there may be an idea too.

It seems not very stable in my camera for mpjeg unfortunately, I may give another try later, while using the snapshot with cgi not working as it is not a pure jpg/gif output but sth embedded in html I think

Unfortunately some cameras (*cough cough* Samsung!) don't allow HTTP(S) or mjpeg streaming and only support the RTSP protocol. That said, this protocol is more accurate and intended for video streaming. 

Terry, I've got a Samsung SmartCam HD Pro with this problem as well as Linux, OS X, iPhones/iPads, and Kindle fire with Fully kiosk browser if you need me to do any specific testing for you. 

I only able to get fully work once or twice seems not very stable and may be related to webview or OS, license is not required to test it and seems no time limit

I didnt test it on the long run yet, but whenever i try for few min it works perfectly for me. Again, it could be cam config. I'd ask manufacturer, also try tweaking a bit rate and resolution. I am using my secondary stream / channel witch is configured to 10 fps (Frame rate) 50 MJPEG quality, 256 bitrate and 512×288 image size. You can adjust it in your camera settings. When i run BLUE IRIS i use it too so i get smooth video feed from 6 different cameras + motion detection + broadcasting, all takes huge CPU load. And with ActionTiles you just go directly to your camera feed  via URL so it should work perfectly

Smartcam HD Pro,  is it possible see stream without RTSP? 

I have a foscam which doesn't support mjpeg and only allows rtsp. I can access the rtsp stream in Fully using the plus feature mentioned and it works flawlessly but when I use the same URL as a media tile in fully, it doesn't work.

• What exact camera model, Steven?
• What tablet model & OS version? 
• What does the feed URL look like?

• Foscam FI9800P
• Samsung Galaxy Tab S (SM-T700), running on Marshmallow 6.0.1
• rtsp://username:password@192.168.1.1:554/videoMain

Although strangely I've just tried that same URL using Fully on my Pixel XL and it gets stuck at "buffering video". I'll keep messing around with it.

Loving AT by the way. About to buy a license.

Forget the bit about it not working on my Pixel XL, I wasn't on WiFi. It does connect, but only seems to show a snapshot and not a live stream. I'll look into it more and report back.

Thanks for keeping me posted, Steven...

• If the Foscam FI9800P turns out to be a good "basic RTSP" test device, then I'll pick one up so I'm on the same page. Please let me know if you think this is a wise choice.
• The bigger challenge will be to poll our customers and potential customers to determine the most popular cameras, and figure out if RTSP is a silver bullet for those too. Such cameras are likely Nest Cam (Dropcam), Arlo, Samsung, ... etc.

I've been doing a lot of research on this.  It's quite complicated and there seems to be no perfect option for us stuck with cameras or DVRs that only support RTSP.  I have come up with a few options/considerations for users as well as the ActionTiles people to look over.

1.  Allow plugins to run from within ActionTiles.  I have come to find out that my original suggestion of using the VLC plugin does work, but with some drawbacks.  Both Firefox and Chrome have blocked the use of NPAPI plugins, so for this to work you must use Internet Explorer to view your ActionTiles panels, tiles, etc.  Also, the RTSP URL itself does need the user name and password in it to work.  That's a little unsettling but it should be okay since it's only going to be available to you from withing your own ActionTiles panel.

2. Use a 3rd party software like BlueIris to pull in those RTSP streams and convert them to HTTP(S) or MJPEG streaming.  This works too.  I tried it on my own panel and it works great, but you do have to have BlueIris installed on a PC and on all the time.  It also seems a little backwards as far as eating up bandwidth in your home.  Essentially you are streaming from your camera to BlueIris via RTSP and then re-streaming back out from BlueIris to ActionTiles via HTTP/MJPEG.  Double the bandwidth for no reason.  I was thinking if this is the way I have to go I would buy one of those mini stick PCs running Windows 10 from Amazon, velcro it to my Samsung DVR, and install BlueIris on there and be done.

3.  Use a 3rd party service that does the re-streaming, like IPCamLive, Wowza, Web Call Server, etc.  There are a bunch out there.  No PC running all the time in your house, but again, the bandwidth issue as well as subscription fees for this stuff.

Back to #1, I think this is the best bet. If ActionTiles allows us to make a blank HTML tile, for example... this would work out great.  Give us the ability to create our own blank tile where we can enter any custom HTML code we want to.  This way, I can just enter my code snippet that I had posted before, make sure I run ActionTiles in Internet Explorer, and then I'm set.  The VLC plugin that I want to use will work and I will be streaming via RTSP directly to my device.

What do you think?

Great summary, sonnaps...

These are exactly an expression of the 3 (or so...) ideas that have been in my head, but not had time to dig into. As such, I can't evaluate them in detail yet, and certain can't decide which option is best. So ... just some off-the-cuff comments:

1. The plug-ins option is impractical if it is not supported by Chrome and Safari. It is doubtful we can convince large numbers of customers to switch to significantly less popular browsers just to view their RTSP cameras.
2. Blue Iris is covered in a separate Topic. If this solution works well, I think it will be recommended for "power users" that have a large number of cameras or need an NVR (Network Video Recorder), etc..
3. 3rd Party Trans-Coding Services, if they are easy to configure and work well, are worth the price, but yes, have various drawbacks. Bandwidth utilization is not a concern for some of us, yet a major concern for others. This concept has the "benefit" that ActionTiles could consider offering transcoding services on our own Cloud as a premium subscription feature.
4. Fetch video feeds from SmartThings. This is something that has to be mentioned. SmartThings should be reminded that cameras are "Things" and their platform looks considerably less "open" if they don't allow "Works With SmartThings"™ Partners to access video feeds from supported cameras. We would be quite willing to negotiate appropriate fees for this.

So while I agree that option #1 is the most straightforward (pending further research and testing), the apparent lack of browser compatibility is a huge concern & roadblock. It hints at a 5th option though: Restructuring or packaging ActionTiles as a "native App", thus facilitating the incorporation of the required plug-ins.

So everyone mentioning Blue Iris got me wondering if I could do the same with my Synology Surveillance system that I stream all my cameras too for security footage. I am able to access a "shared stream" for these cameras using RTSP, RTSP-over-HTTP, or Multicast, but sadly they all seem to start with the "rtsp://" protocol prefix. I was hopeful the RTSP-over-HTTP might actually create an embeddable H.264+ video transcode feed but so far it doesn't seem like it. I won't know for sure until I get home later tonight and can experiment this weekend. I'll try and post back if I find anything usable.

Has there been any furrher discussion about this. Lookong to add my Foscam R2 into AT

Unfortunately, we have no optimistic leads at this time for direct RTSP support.

I'm pulling the still shots in just fine...
http://IP:PORT/cgi-bin/CGIProxy.fcgi?cmd=snapPicture2&usr=USER&pwd=PWD

anyone to change the image every 1 second or something? I can access over a snap picture.. but not video;( my old 9821wv2 world amazing with video but the new 9821p is a tots crap

i use SecuritySpy on my mac  as a server to host my http urls. Basically it takes my cheap chinese RTSP cameras and converts them to http or https and it hosts it for me. Confirmed working in action tiles etc.

Great to hear, Matt!

Yup... Our recommendation for RTSP handling for the indefinite future:

• Use a transcoding server like SecuritySpy, Blue Iris, VLC, ... I think there are even cloud services.

We might explore these more so we can give better instructions; but we like what we hear so far!

But the video still freezes on all 3 platforms.... 

I haven't found that to be the case, Andrew; but perhaps other Customers can chime in with their experiences?

There are a lot of factors that might contribute - the type of Tablet (amount of RAM? speed?), local network WiFi reliability, number of streams...

Blue Iris is running on a Dell R710 

* 2X X5680 @3.33GHz

* 72GB Ram

* Windows Server 2008 R2 64 Bit

Using on a Ipad Pro 256GB 12.9 (I have tried Safari, Dolphin Browser, Chrome, Firefox, and etc.)

Using Google wifi connnected at 120mbps -300 mbps ( I stream 4K to all my devices no problem)

Also using a Samsung Tab S3 same problem

How many concurrent video streams on your Panel, please, Andrew?

Browsers just don't handle lots of concurrent video very efficiently. ActionTiles does no processing of the video stream, so it's likely nothing we can tune. We recommend trying lower resolution and frame rates if you encounter issues. Thanks.

I have a total of 9 Streams, I use perfect web for the browser on ipad and have it set to auto refresh every 300 seconds. It runs months without me ever having to re open app

Hi Andrew,

What do you mean by "auto refresh every 300 seconds"? Did you set every individual Media Tile to have a refresh interval (AT currently does not actually distinguish a stream, so the refresh "still image" option might have a positive effect on streaming video...)? ... Or do you refresh the entire Panel?

Full Panel refreshes do impose some additional load on the AT Cloud, so if this is the method that you are using, we're glad to hear it works; but encourage you to use the least frequent interval that still retains stability (i.e., test with 600 seconds, 1200 seconds, and so on). Also keep in mind that updates to iOS and.or the underlying Safari engine may suddenly change stability unpredictably, for better or worse.

Thanks very much for sharing this successful configuration!

...Terry.

9 video streams... if that is to many what is your recommendation. A dedicated actiontiles app would be nice :)

I recommend running only as many concurrently streams that you can without crashing. There is no specific limit because there are lots of factors involved and we do not claim to be video experts. Customer's experiences here help us learn what works and what doesn't, and from time to time that points us to ideas for optimization.

You should also experiment with lower frame rates and/or lower resolution from your feeds, please. Every frame has to be processed by the GPU and puts load on the browser and tablet, etc., etc., so ... less stuff = more stable.

As much as we know everybody loves the convenience of Video Tiles mixed right among Thing Tiles, ActionTiles is not an app that is tailored to handle "lots" of concurrent video feeds. It isn't an App like Blue Iris, or IP Cam Viewer - which does a great job for video; but, of course, it doesn't view and control your SmartThings. ActionTiles has an entirely different core function.

I thought I'd share this (although I haven't bought AT yet, too poor after Christmas... using with HousePanel for now)

I’ve gotten live video to work for my Hikvision camera, using TinyCam Monitor Pro! Apparently, the developer of that app added a built in webserver to transcode the rtsp feed so I looked at the code from the page it generates and used that as the image source:

div.image.url.img1 { background-image: url(“http://192.168.1.28:8083/axis-cgi/mjpg/video.cgi?cameraId=1234567890”); }

I configured the web server with no security, started the web server, browsed to the root page and loaded up one camera, used “inspect” in chrome to find the full image path with the cameraId etc.

Apparently, the developer of that app added a built in webserver to transcode the rtsp feed 

That's an idea that has occurred to me, and is on our list of "things to research". Indeed, doing transcoding as a background Android process is potentially powerful solution, but not without complications. We might even be able to license the module from TinyCam's developer and pass the cost on to customers as an add-on option.

This works excellent!  When setting up the web server in tinycam you have to blank out the administrative username to get it to work using this Url.

This worked for me too.  The feed is a little laggy sometimes but never the less, it works.  

Regarding to

https://www.ozerov.de/fully-kiosk-browser/

its supporting RTSP Streams.

• Play videos supported by Android incl. RTSP streams fullscreen in the built-in viewer (PLUS)

Why is it not supported by Actiontiles?

Fully's RTSP support only works full-screen, and only works for a single-stream.

Fully (nor any browser) does not support streaming RTSP within a Tile(s).

So its been two years since this thread began.  Does ActionTiles now finally support RTSP links directly?