RTMP Stream Capture

ence
ence
in SecuritySpy

Hello,

I'm giving a look at the SecuritySpy software to see how compatible it is with various cameras. In one specific scenario in my environment, RTMP stream capture is required over RTSP because of issues with stream stability and de-sync when using RTSP on that particular system.

I have not been able to find mention of support for RTMP streams in the software or documentation thus far. Does SecuritySpy support RTMP stream capture, perhaps using a custom URL? If not currently supported, is RTMP stream support planned for a future relase?

Comments

  • Ben
    Ben
    edited April 2023

    SecuritySpy currently does not support RTMP streams. This is because RTSP is the industry standard, supported by the vast majority of proper CCTV cameras, and hence this is what we have focussed on supporting. We have no concrete plans to add RTMP but we will monitor demand and will consider this for the future if more cameras begin to support it.

  • ence
    ence

    Hi Ben,

    Thank you for your reply and for confirming that the software doesn't currently support RTMP. I do hope that adding RTMP support finds its way onto the SecuritySpy roadmap. Apart from being a solution for the specific issue in my environment, I note that RTMP does seem to have found fairly broad support from competitor software, including Blue Iris and Shinobi. So I hope that there is an eye being given to maintaining feature parity amongst peer software packages.

    To be sure, standardizing on SecuritySpy is by far my first preference, but again, I am limited by hardware constraints and do not have the freedom to replace the existing camera hardware. So in this case, the hardware may unfortunately end up dictating the software solution.

    Thank you again for your reply.

  • Ben
    Ben

    Thanks for the further feedback. Can you please let me know what camera makes/models you're using here?

  • ence
    ence
    edited April 2023

    Happy to provide this information.

    The cameras are 5MP Reolinks with support for H.264; more specifically, this is the "E1 Outdoor" model. The camera supports both RTSP and RTMP protocols, but my findings so far have been that the RTMP stream is the significantly more reliable transport for the cameras.

    Testing with VLC as a direct client of the RTSP and RTMP streams, I've confirmed that the RTMP stream does not fall behind during long-running connections, and additionally appears to provide superior video quality, as other Reolink users have noted via documentation here:

    https://hub.shinobi.video/articles/view/PHPllc46JMDm83W

    I know that Reolink doesn't have the best track record with stream support (although I understand this is improving), but I can attest to RTMP behaving well for this model. RTSP "works", but it develops the de-sync issue over long-running sessions that ultimately causes loss of footage after the emitted stream falls about 30 seconds behind real time. If I were to speculate, I'd guess that the VBR encoding of the RTSP stream causes some issues with keeping time, even if the Fixed Frame Rate option is set under the Stream settings.

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