Opening RTSP Stream using VLC/GStreamer/FFmpeg

Describes a few ways to open and read an RTSP audio/video stream using freely available tools like VLC Player, GStreamer and FFmpeg

Sign-up for a free account on RTSP Stream

  • Create an account on RTSP Stream using your email address or google account or twitter account
  • Once you're in the Dashboard, copy one of the RTSP Stream URLs by clicking on the tile
  • The URL should be of the form rtsp://rtspstream:<password>@<server>.rtsp.stream/movie

Opening RTSP URL using VLC Player

  • Download Video Lan VLC Player from https://www.videolan.org/vlc/
  • Click Media -> Open Network Stream
  • In the URL field enter the RTSP Stream URL you copied in the above step
  • Click Play

Opening RTSP URL using GStreamer

  • Install GStreamer for your Operating System using these Installation Instructions
  • Use the below pipeline on your command-line
gst-launch-1.0 rtspsrc location=rtsp://rtspstream:<password>@zephyr.rtsp.stream/movie latency=100 ! queue ! rtph264depay ! h264parse ! avdec_h264 ! videoconvert ! videoscale ! video/x-raw,width=640,height=480 ! autovideosink

Opening RTSP URL using FFmpeg

  • Install FFmpeg for your OS. For Debian based systems you can use
sudo apt-get install ffmpeg
  • Then use the bundled ffplay utility to read the RTSP Stream. Use the RTSP Stream URL copied in Step #1 above.
ffplay "rtsp://rtspstream:<password>@zephyr.rtsp.stream/movie"