Video Stream (RTSP)

In addition to VMS systems support, QbProtect allows video player clients to directly consume a rendered point cloud video stream using the RTSP protocol. The demonstration of video stream consumption using VLC player is shown in Figure 1 below.

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Figure 1. The RTSP video stream of QbProtect 3D point cloud

The perspective of the RTSP video stream can be synchronized with the one configured in the WebGUI. For that, navigate to the Viewer page of the QbProtect WebGUI, configure the desired view perspective, and apply the keyboard shortcut Shift+V.

The RTSP video stream is individual per sensor source in the sensor setup and is not affected by distributed swarm configurations.

RTSP transports

QbProtect supports multiple RTSP transport modes summarized in the Table 1 below.

Table 1. RTSP transport modes supported by QbProtect
Transport Supported Port Description Encrypted

RTP/AVP (UDP)

✅

554 / dynamic

RTP/RTCP over dynamic UDP ports, RTSP control over TCP 554

❌

RTP/AVP/TCP (interleaved)

✅

554

Both RTP/RTCP and RTSP control are interleaved inside the TCP connection

❌

RTSPS

❌

443

RTSP carried over TLS

✅

RTSP over HTTP

✅

80

RTSP tunneled over HTTP GET/POST

❌

RTSP over HTTPS

✅

443

RTSP tunneled over HTTPS. Not supported by VLC/GStreamer/FFmpeg clients.

✅

The QbProtect does not support simultaneous RTSP connections over plain and tunneled transports. The conflicting connection type will be actively rejected by QbProtect. Connections from multiple RTSP clients, when each connection utilizes either exclusively tunneled (RTSP over HTTP or RTSP over HTTPS) or exclusively plain RTSP transports (UDP or TCP interleaved), are supported

Please refer to the subsection below to find out how to establish the RTSP stream in the desired transport mode.

RTSP streaming

The RTSP video stream URL of the following generic format: rtsp://user:key@qb2-ABC123XYZ.muc.blickfeld.com:port/local/pointcloud/core may be used by various clients for the consumption of the RTSP video stream. The format of the URL may vary depending on the desired RTSP transport. Examples of RTSP URLs and how they are used with selected video clients are shown in the subsections below.

  • Please refer to the User authentication to find out how to obtain a valid ONVIF credentials pair user:key.

  • Please adapt the device FQDN qb2-ABC123XYZ.muc.blickfeld.com and credentials pair user:key to your QbProtect configuration.

  • RTSP clients also impose limitations on the supported tunneled RTSP transports. The RTSP over HTTPS connection is not supported by VLC/GStreamer/FFmpeg clients (requires an extra TLS layer). The FFmpeg client also does not support the RTSP over HTTP. The support by VMS systems is vendor-specific.

VLC (GUI)

Before opening the RTSP stream, please make sure to select the correct Demuxer configuration for the desired RTSP Transport via Tools → Preferences → Show settings → All → Input / Codecs → Demuxers → RTP/RTSP, as shown in the Figure 2 below.

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Figure 2. VLC settings for: 1. RTP/AVP (UDP) - default 2. RTP/AVP/TCP(interleaved) - only Use RTP over RTSP (TCP) is enabled 3. RTSP over HTTP - only Tunnel RTSP and RTP over HTTP is enabled

RTSP URLs can be used via Media → Open Network Stream → Play , as shown in the Figure 3 below.

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Figure 3. VLC streaming URL

  • RTP/AVP (UDP) and RTP/AVP/TCP(interleaved)

    rtsp://user:key@qb2-ABC123XYZ.muc.blickfeld.com:554/local/pointcloud/core

  • RTSP over HTTP

    rtsp://user:key@qb2-ABC123XYZ.muc.blickfeld.com:80/local/pointcloud/core

GStreamer (CLI)

  • RTP/AVP (UDP)

    $ gst-launch-1.0 -v rtspsrc location=rtsp://user:key@qb2-ABC123XYZ.muc.blickfeld.com:554/local/pointcloud/core protocols=udp ! decodebin ! autovideosink

  • RTP/AVP/TCP(interleaved)

    $ gst-launch-1.0 -v rtspsrc location=rtsp://user:key@qb2-ABC123XYZ.muc.blickfeld.com:554/local/pointcloud/core protocols=tcp ! decodebin ! autovideosink

  • RTSP over HTTP

    gst-launch-1.0 -v rtspsrc location="rtsph://qb2-ABC123XYZ.muc.blickfeld:80/local/pointcloud/core" user-id="user" user-pw="key" onvif-mode=true onvif-rate-control=true ! decodebin ! autovideosink

FFmpeg (CLI)

  • RTP/AVP (UDP)

    ffplay -rtsp_transport udp rtsp://user:key@qb2-ABC123XYZ.muc.blickfeld.com:554/local/pointcloud/core

  • RTP/AVP/TCP(interleaved)

    ffplay -rtsp_transport tcp rtsp://user:key@qb2-ABC123XYZ.muc.blickfeld.com:554/local/pointcloud/core

VMS

VMS systems provide vendor-specific generic RTSP drivers (direct RTSP streaming) or ONVIF conformant drivers (RTSP stream is obtained via URL from ONVIF).

Please refer to the VMS section to find out how to add QbProtect to your security system via ONVIF drivers for various supported VMS systems. The direct RTSP video streaming (without ONVIF) does not forward any security-related events into VMS.

The selection of the generic RTSP driver for direct RTSP streaming is exemplified for Senstar Symphony in the Figure 4 below.

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Figure 4. The generic RTSP driver in Senstar Symphony

The RTSP transport is usually selected manually or from the provided list of media profiles. The exemplification of RTSP transport selection for Milestone XProtect Management Client is depicted in the Figure 5 below.

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Figure 5. The selection of the RTSP transport in Milestone XProtect Management Client

RTSP diagnostics

The active RTSP client connection is reflected by ONVIF widget in QbProtect Configuration dashboard, as shown in Figure 6 below.

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Figure 6. The ONVIF widget in QbProtect configuration: active RTSP streaming

Information about the QbProtect RTSP health state, the number of connected clients, and video rates can be found in System → Diagnostics → Integrations → Video, as shown in Figure 7 below.

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Figure 7. The RTSP diagnostics: the number of active RTSP clients and stream rates

In this example, the QbProtect scan pattern frame rate was set to 8 Hz and a single RTSP client is connected to QbProtect.

  1. The Fetch rate indicates the rate at which raw point-cloud frames are consumed from the internal processing pipeline

  2. The Render rate indicates the rate at which video frames are produced from raw point-cloud frames

  3. The Push rate indicates the rate at which rendered video frames are pushed into the video streaming pipeline

  • The reported video rates are determined by the configured frame rate of the active scan pattern and are there for diagnostic purposes

  • The actual RTSP stream is delivered from QbProtect to RTSP clients at a constant 20 FPS in HD resolution (1280x720)

The information about Video health is also available via gRPC API