How do I display an RTSP camera stream?

[SteveMann]

Newbie to MagicMirror here.

I have some RTSP cameras on Frigate in my Home Assistant server. I would like to put one of the cameras on my MagicMirror, but the only module for RTSP cameras is archived 3-years ago.

Is there an RTSP module that has escaped my search?

[sdetweil]

@SteveMann see

https://github.com/evroom/MMM-MPlayer

a search on rtsp in the 3rd party list linked above
returned 4 choices

[SteveMann]

Thanks for the info. Perhaps I was using the wrong search term. I was looking for RTSP here:
https://github.com/MagicMirrorOrg/MagicMirror/wiki/3rd-party-modules

Is there a better place to search for Modules?

My home office has no window facing the front of my house and I had been using a tablet running a browser to watch the stream, but MagicMirror is shaping up to be a better solution.
Is this another rabbit hole? (Home Assistant was the first). I am already planning my next MM location…

[BKeyport]

@SteveMann RTSP isn’t directly compatible with MagicMirror. The only solution I ever found to work, and what I’ve stuck with, is load up an old Pi 4 with MotionEyeOS - and use that to convert over to web, then use something like MMM-EmbedURL to show the stream provided by MotionEye.

[sdetweil]

@SteveMann in the header here

[SteveMann]

@BKeyport said in How do I display an RTSP camera stream?:

I’ve stuck with, is load up an old Pi 4 with MotionEyeOS

Thanks for the tip, but I don’t see how MotionEye would serve my cameras RTSP stream?

[BKeyport]

@SteveMann MotionEyeOS will take in the RTSP stream and push out a web compatible stream. At that point, you can take MMM-Embed URL and show the stream. I use the older non-supported MotionEyeOS because the newer versions of MotionEye don’t want to work reliably yet in the way I want.

My motion eye settings - note, I have the low setting in use to save the Pi4 from working too hard:

the embed URL is http://192.168.X.X/picture/1/frame/

		{
			module: "MMM-EmbedURL",
			position: "top_left",
			classes: "camera1",
			config: {
				updateInterval: 0,
				animationSpeed: 0, 
				appendTimestamp: false,
				attibutes: [],
				embed: [
					"http://192.168.X.X/picture/1/frame/"
				],
			},
		},

[SteveMann]

@BKeyport
I always thought that MotionEyeOS was a DVR for webcams.
Thanks for the feedback. I know what I will be doing tonight.

Today I’ve been experimenting with mplayer and VLC on the Pi (not on MagicMirror), and no matter what I do the stream freezes after a few minutes. I know that the camera stream is still streaming because I see it on Frigate on a separate PC.

Could it be as simple as the Pi3 running out of resources?

[BKeyport]

@SteveMann Pi3 is likely being choked to death with that. It’s hard on the Pi4. If I could get it to run the way I wanted on a Pi 5, I’d upgrade to that myself.

[SteveMann]

@BKeyport said in How do I display an RTSP camera stream?:

MotionEyeOS will take in the RTSP stream and push out a web compatible stream.

I wanted to try MotionEyeOS, but I can’t find anything recent. The git was archived five years ago and the only binary that I could find was for the Pi2. Is there a supported version somewhere that I’ve missed?