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How to Provide RTSP Access for an External System

Flussonic Watcher allows an external system to access video via the RTSP protocol, solving the following tasks:

  • Playback of archives
  • Uniform access from any streamer in the cluster to all cameras in the system (no need to change camera addresses in the external system)
  • Access control and revocation of rights
  • Reducing the load on the camera by multiplexing requests to it

How to Do It?

You must have Watcher installed. Whether it's an installation on a single server or in a cluster doesn't matter, the access method is the same.

Next, you need to create a camera to which you are going to provide access. To provide working access, it's necessary to create a long-term access token, a mechanism similar to adding a camera to a website.

Create a new token on the Cameras -> Shares page.

Then, you need to form the following RTSP URL:

rtsp://WATCHER-IP/CAMERA_NAME?token=TOKEN

Where you need to substitute the following values:

  • WATCHER-IP - the address or hostname of the server with Watcher, on which Flussonic is running. It's important to note that you can use the address of any streamer in your cluster here, as they will all serve RTSP requests.
  • CAMERA_NAME - the camera identifier. It's easiest to take it from the URL.
  • TOKEN is taken from the table with tokens on the Shares page.

Uniform Access in the Cluster

Using Flussonic Central as an orchestrator for the Watcher cluster out of the box enables video playback from any camera on any streamer.

This will automatically enable restreaming of the stream between streamers.

This functionality is needed to avoid editing the list of sources in the external system every time a camera is moved.

You can specify either the address of the Flussonic that is installed alongside Watcher on the first server or any other streamer.

Playback of Archives

Access to the archive via RTSP will work automatically, without any settings.

It is only important that playback of the archive is allowed in the token itself.

Multiplexing Access

The approach with RTSP restreaming is needed for cases when there are many consumers for a camera: emergency services, internal affairs, healthcare, analytics, etc. The increased load will be on the streaming servers, but to the cameras themselves, there will be no more than one connection.

In this case, if the streamer is changed, the access settings for your partners will not change, which greatly facilitates working with them.