Re-streaming an RTSP stream through Wowza Pro (RTSP/RTP)

[charlie]

Step by step instructions for Re-streaming and RTSP stream through Wowza Pro.

1. Download and install Wowza Media Server Pro (version: Wowza Pro 1.7.0 or greater is required)
2. Download and install the most recent patch to get RTSP/RTP interleaving feature: http://www.wowzamedia.com/devbuild.html
3. Create a new Wowza Pro application for streaming (may already exist if examples installed)
   1. Create the folder [install-dir]/applications/rtplive
   2. Create the folder [install-dir]/conf/rtplive
   3. Copy the file [install-dir]/conf/Application.xml into this new folder [install-dir]/conf/rtplive
   4. Edit the newly copied Application.xml and make the following changes:
      • Change Streams/StreamType to rtp-live
      • Add following properties to Streams/Properties container (there are several <Properties> containers, be sure to add to correct container)
        

        <Property>
        	<Name>sortPackets</Name>
        	<Value>true</Value>
        	<Type>Boolean</Type>
        </Property>
        <Property>
        	<Name>sortBufferSize</Name>
        	<Value>500</Value>
        	<Type>Integer</Type>
        </Property>

      • Add following properties to MediaCaster/Properties container (there are several <Properties> containers, be sure to add to correct container)
        

        <Property>
        	<Name>forceInterleaved</Name>
        	<Value>true</Value>
        	<Type>Boolean</Type>
        </Property>

4. Startup the Wowza Pro server
5. To play the stream, double click [install-dir]/examples/LiveVideoStreaming/client/live.html enter the following information and click the Play button:
   

   Server to rtmp://[server-ip-address]/rtplive
   Stream to rtsp://[encoder-ip-address] (Example: rtsp://192.168.1.8:554)

   Where [server-ip-address] is the ip address of the server running Wowza Pro and [encoder-ip-address] is the ip address of the RTSP device.

Note: Some cameras do not support RTSP/RTP interleaving (sending the RTP packet data over the RTSP TCP connection) If this is the case then set the forceInterleaved property above to false, restart Wowza Media Server and try to play the stream.

Note: Some cameras do not send RTCP packets. If you see the warning log message:

Waiting for RTCP packet. See docs for (Application.xml: RTP/AVSyncMethod and RTP/MaxRTCPWaitTime).

Edit [install-dir]/rtplive/Application.xml and change the RTP/AVSyncMethod to systemclock.

Note: If you are re-streaming an H.264 stream from an Axis Communications camera such as the following models (which natively support H.264): M1011(-W), M1031-W, P3301(-V), Q1755, Q6032 the RTSP url take the form:

rtsp://[camera-ip-address]:554/axis-media/media.amp

where [camera-ip-address] is the ip adress of the Axis camera.


Note: By default Wowza Pro streams using UDP on ports 6970 - 9999 and TCP port 554. This can be a problem if you are streaming to a Wowza Pro server or Oscar that is behind a firewall on which these ports are blocked. To resolve this issue, you need to open up the UDP port range 6970 - 9999 and TCP port 554 on any firewalls between the Oscar encoder and Wowza Pro. You may also need to adjust the [oscar-ip-address] if the Oscar is behind a router that has provided a NAT address for the device.

Note: Many players will not accept stream names that look like urls. You can use the stream name alias package to create an alias for the stream name url. This package can also be used to secure Wowza Pro so that it will only be able to restream urls that you specify. This package can be downloaded from here: StreamNameAlias.

Note: There is an issue when re-streaming an RTSP/RTP stream that is hosted by Quicktime Streaming Server (Darwin, QTSS) that after 2 minutes of streaming the stream will be dropped by QTSS. This is caused by the fact that Wowza Pro does not send RTCP Receiver Report packets back to QTSS. This causes QTSS to timeout and disconnect the stream based on the rtp_timeout value defined in streamingserver.xml. The current workaround for this issue is to set the rtp_timeout property in QTSS to 0 (zero) which will disable this timeout feature. We are investigating supporting RTCP RR packets in a future release of Wowza Pro.

Note: If you experience problems getting either the audio or video to play through Flash, double check the version number of the Flash player (Flash player version 9.0.115.0 or above is required). If you still have problems, turn on Wowza Pro debug logging (edit [install-dir]/conf/log4j.properties and change the log4j.rootCategory on the first line from INFO to DEBUG), try the encoder several more times, zip up and send your [install-dir]/logs folder along with screen shots of the encoder setup screens and the LiveVideoStreaming player screen and send a detailed description of your problem to support@wowzamedia.com.

See this post for troubleshooting tips:
Troubleshooting live streaming issues

Charlie

[TheyKilledKenny]

Hello to everyone,

I followed this instruction in detail BUT
I am working on a fresh install virtual machine with Win2K sp4, all drivers and codec installed.
WowzaMediaServer 1.6.0 and patch12 applied, examples installed.
(streamType in application.xml in rtplive folder is set to rtp-live)
I'm tryin to connect with a 2N video door phone wich has rtsp protocol with h.264.
Wowza server on ip 192.168.3.54
Video door phon on ip 192.168.3.53
With VLC I can use rtsp://192.168.3.53 as address and the streaming is OK

Opening LiveVideoStrem client example and using
SERVER: rtmp://192.168.3.54/rtplive
STREAM: rtsp://192.168.3.53:554

Wowza server console report the following messages:

INFO stream create - -
streamName: rtsp://192.168.3.53/video
playStart: -2.0
playLen: -1.0
playReset: 1
INFO server comment - MediaStreamMediaCasterPlay: startPlay
INFO server comment - RTPMediaCaster.create
INFO server comment - RTPMediaCaster.init
INFO server comment - RTPMediaCaster.Reconnector: start
ERROR server comment - RTPSessionDescriptionDataProviderBasicRTSPWorker.processR
esponse: CSeq less than zero
INFO server comment - MediaStreamMediaCasterPlay: close

The WowzaMediaServer network sniffing (wireshark) is

DESCRIBE rtsp://192.168.3.53:554 RTSP/1.0
CSeq: 1
Accept: application/sdp
User-Agent: Wowza Media Server Pro (Wowza Media Server Pro10 1.6.0 build10546)

RTSP/1.0 200 OK
CSeq: 1
Content-Type: application/sdp
Content-Length: 284
Server: HIP1.1.0.117.0

v=0
o=- 0 0 IN IP4 192.168.3.53
s=HeliosIP Streaming
c=IN IP4 192.168.3.53
t=0 0
m=audio 0 RTP/AVP 0
a=control:rtsp://192.168.3.53/audio
m=video 0 RTP/AVP 96
a=rtpmap:96 H264/90000
a=fmtp:96 profile-level-id=42E01E; packetization-mode=1
a=control:rtsp://192.168.3.53/video

SETUP rtsp://192.168.3.53:554/rtsp://192.168.3.53/audio RTSP/1.0
Transport: RTP/AVP;unicast;client_port=6970-6971
CSeq: 2
User-Agent: Wowza Media Server Pro (Wowza Media Server Pro10 1.6.0 build10546)

RTSP/1.0 404 Not Found
Server: HIP1.1.0.117.0

TEARDOWN rtsp://192.168.3.53:554 RTSP/1.0
CSeq: 3
User-Agent: Wowza Media Server Pro (Wowza Media Server Pro10 1.6.0 build10546)

RTSP/1.0 454 Session Not Found
CSeq: 3
Server: HIP1.1.0.117.0

The main difference with vlc stream is in this rows:
WOWZA:
SETUP rtsp://192.168.3.53:554/rtsp://192.168.3.53/audio RTSP/1.0
Transport: RTP/AVP;unicast;client_port=6970-6971
CSeq: 2

VLC:
SETUP rtsp://192.168.3.53/audio RTSP/1.0
CSeq: 9
Transport: RTP/AVP;unicast;client_port=1162-1163

Where I am wrong?
I am not able to figure it out.

Help please.

[charlie]

I think I see the issue. I have never seen an RTSP session where the control name is a=control:rtsp://192.168.3.53/video. I have never seen it with the full url prefix. Let me think about this and get back to you.

Charlie

[TheyKilledKenny]

Thank you Charlie for your support,

A strange things is when I change the ip address of the device.

The rtp device is now on ip 192.168.3.50 (not .3.53 as before), but the responses have the .53 ip adress in the a=control:...
VLC is still working ok.

This is the vlc network sniff:

OPTIONS rtsp://192.168.3.50 RTSP/1.0
CSeq: 1
User-Agent: VLC media player (LIVE555 Streaming Media v2008.07.24)

RTSP/1.0 200 OK
CSeq: 1
Public: DESCRIBE, SETUP, TEARDOWN, PLAY, OPTIONS
Server: HIP1.1.0.117.0

DESCRIBE rtsp://192.168.3.50 RTSP/1.0
CSeq: 2
Accept: application/sdp
User-Agent: VLC media player (LIVE555 Streaming Media v2008.07.24)

RTSP/1.0 200 OK
CSeq: 2
Content-Type: application/sdp
Content-Length: 284
Server: HIP1.1.0.117.0

v=0
o=- 0 0 IN IP4 192.168.3.53
s=HeliosIP Streaming
c=IN IP4 192.168.3.53
t=0 0
m=audio 0 RTP/AVP 0
a=control:rtsp://192.168.3.53/audio
m=video 0 RTP/AVP 96
a=rtpmap:96 H264/90000
a=fmtp:96 profile-level-id=42E01E; packetization-mode=1
a=control:rtsp://192.168.3.53/video
SETUP rtsp://192.168.3.53/audio RTSP/1.0
CSeq: 3
Transport: RTP/AVP;unicast;client_port=1178-1179
User-Agent: VLC media player (LIVE555 Streaming Media v2008.07.24)

RTSP/1.0 200 OK
CSeq: 3
Transport: RTP/AVP/UDP;unicast;client_port=1178-1179;mode=PLAY
Session: 14334;Timeout=30
Server: HIP1.1.0.117.0

SETUP rtsp://192.168.3.53/video RTSP/1.0
CSeq: 4
Transport: RTP/AVP;unicast;client_port=1180-1181
Session: 14334
User-Agent: VLC media player (LIVE555 Streaming Media v2008.07.24)

RTSP/1.0 200 OK
CSeq: 4
Transport: RTP/AVP/UDP;unicast;client_port=1180-1181;mode=PLAY
Session: 14334;Timeout=30
Server: HIP1.1.0.117.0

PLAY rtsp://192.168.3.50 RTSP/1.0
CSeq: 5
Session: 14334
Range: npt=0.000-
User-Agent: VLC media player (LIVE555 Streaming Media v2008.07.24)

RTSP/1.0 200 OK
CSeq: 5
Server: HIP1.1.0.117.0

TEARDOWN rtsp://192.168.3.50 RTSP/1.0
CSeq: 6
Session: 14334
User-Agent: VLC media player (LIVE555 Streaming Media v2008.07.24)

RTSP/1.0 200 OK
CSeq: 6
Server: HIP1.1.0.117.0

The SETUP is issued using the "wrong" ip address in a=control:rtsp://192.168.3.53/audio
SETUP rtsp://192.168.3.53/audio

but the PLAY and TEARDOWN is issued using the right device IP Address
PLAY rtsp://192.168.3.50 RTSP/1.0

I already noted that when the device was on 192.168.1.100. VLC stream was ok, but wowza does not, as already reported.
To analyze only one problem at a time I set the ip address to the one reported in the network sniff (192.168.3.53) and i post the first message.
Now for a complete report i post you this.

Thank you for reading my post, I am sorry for my poor English.

[charlie]

Download and install patch14 from here:

http://www.wowzamedia.com/devbuild.html

It should address the issue. The ip address issue you are having is on the encoder side.

Charlie

[TheyKilledKenny]

Thank you very much!!!

Applied the patch and now I can stream the video except for a 2 second latency, but I think is due to a very small virtual machine.

About the Ip Issue wowza now is able to go in the right way even with that issue, like VLC.

Now I'll perform some deeper tests.
Do you need a network sniffing to see what's happen exactly with this patch and the device?

Thank you for your fast response and patch.

Bye

[drblakl]

Charlie!,

This is awesome! I was streaming from two different browsers and it worked great!

Thanks again for your help!!!

Do you all have any recommendations for good free flash players where you can embed the source of the video streams? This may be in the forums, I just hadn't gotten to this point yet.

Have a great night!



Sincerely,
Devin

[charlie]

JW Player and FlowPlayer.

http://www.wowzamedia.com/forums/showthread.php?t=182
http://www.wowzamedia.com/forums/showthread.php?t=710

Charlie

[drblakl]

Charlie,

Thanks again!

After testing the feed through the flash clients streaming through Wowza using rtp-live the stream only relays through the Wowza server as a flash stream. This is great!

What I'd like to eventually do is have the Wowza Server record and save video from this stream.

I would essentially like the Wowza server to connect to the stream and keep a constant connection. Then when a user connects to the Wowza server have the Wowza server re-stream that single stream. ** Right now the Wowza server will establish a new rtsp session every time a client connects.

Is there a way to have the Wowza server mirror or only connect to the source stream once and re-stream without having to re-establish a rtsp connection?

[charlie]

It does only connect to the source once. It doesn't connect to the source until the first client requests the stream. If a second client comes along and requests the same stream it will not create another connection to the source all future connections will be served from the single connection to the source. Once the last client drops off then the Wowza Pro will remain connected to the source for 10 seconds waiting for additional client. If no other client request the stream it will drop the connection.

I am actively working on a Flash based tool for managing these sessions so that they are not started/stopped on demand. Check the Useful Code and Live Encoder section over the next week for a tool that will either be called MediaCasterStreamStarter or MediaCasterStreamManager. It will give you better control when the stream is started and stopped.

Charlie