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MZ
MZ

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How to stream RTSP to React using ExpressJS

Hi, I'm back. I will be showing you how to stream RTSP video input to your React frontend.

RTSP video is generally from your ip camera but it is a type of video format. I struggled with doing this whole project but I have come up with a stable enough project to help you out, if you need any. Also, I'd say the solutions on the web are really all over the place.

I definitely struggled because I didn't know the first thing about RTSP and streaming video.

I'll be using these frameworks/technologies:

You can find the full source code here. I will go over the basics of the code.

We are going to:

  • use axios to send a GET request to the backend
  • use ffmpeg to convert RTSP to files (.m3u8 and .ts files)
  • pipe/insert those files into a HLS(Http Live Streaming) server
  • send a response back to the frontend once the .m3u8 file has been created
  • show the video player using a state variable
  • actually play the video

Use ffmpeg to convert RTSP to files (.m3u8 and .ts files)

Screenshot 2021-03-05 at 7.50.48 PM

The RTSP video format consists of 2 files. The .m3u8 file and the .ts files.

Screenshot 2021-03-05 at 7.20.15 PM

The .m3u8 file is like a directory of where the .ts files are. So the video player needs the .m3u8 file to actually ask for the rest of the .ts files.

The .ts files are segments of the video that has been cut. You can specify the length of each segment using ffmpeg.

This is what the .m3u8 file looks like.

Screenshot 2021-03-05 at 8.13.10 PM

Since both files are needed, our backend does accommodate for these two files, meaning two GET request paths.

Pipe/insert those files into a HLS(Http Live Streaming) server

This is where HLS(HTTP Live Streaming) comes in.

As you can see, there are 2 routes. getManifestStream and getSegmentStream.

getManifestStream serves the .m3u8 file while getSegmentStream serves .ts files.

Screenshot 2021-03-05 at 7.52.56 PM

This code checks to see if the files(.m3u8, .ts) are actually created and makes sure that they are ready to be served/streamed to the frontend.

Send a response back to the frontend

To check if the .m3u8 file has actually been created, I did a check.


 fs.constants.F_OK, (err) =>  {}

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This is made in the .on('progress') block of the ffmpeg function which allows you to check on the progress of the file conversion.

If the file has indeed been created, do a res.sendStatus(200).

Show the video player using a state variable

In the frontend, we are at the response block of the axios.get("") function where we will set the state variable to true and ask React to re-render the video player into the DOM.

Screenshot 2021-03-05 at 8.02.09 PM

Actually play the video

Screenshot 2021-03-05 at 8.04.24 PM

The video will play automatically once the .m3u8 file has been loaded. However, as you can see, I set the muted property as such because for some reason (as seen on Stackoverflow), Chrome needed it to be set for the video to play automatically.

Again, it can be overwhelming, so you can find the full source code here.

Top comments (4)

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piyushok profile image
Piyush Mahapatra

Hello, what if I have an RTSP URL that I want to convert and send it to the frontend?

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muhdmirzamz profile image
MZ

Hello, is there any section in particular you need help with?

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johnnykoo84 profile image
Johnny Ilmo Koo

Hello Thanks a lot for your code and tutorial.
BTW, have you tried using rtsp url instead of mp4 files?
for me it is not working for url, so trying to figure out what the the root cause.

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sws-5007 profile image
Harry Potter

Hi.
Now, I need to display the rtsp video on Next.js Frontend project without any backend.
Can you let me know how to do this?