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?

[BKeyport]

@SteveMann That’s the rough part - the original author abandoned the project - and they’re rebuilding…

https://github.com/motioneye-project/motioneyeos/releases - use the pi image there to get started - will work on everything up to Pi 4. Does not work on Pi 5.

[hrmax23]

Also looking to stream a camera feed from Frigate. It looks like MMM-FreeboxTV would have worked but can’t find that anywhere.

[BKeyport]

@hrmax23 I have a feeling that was a module by an author that has pulled all his work and left the community over hurt feelings.

Thanks to poorly thought out everything (outside of our control), we’re in a kind of hole and have to patch together a solution - just the way it is.

[sdetweil]

@BKeyport outside our control,

MagicMirror is NOT significant project for any of our dependencies on OS, Electron, node, and on and on

Os, node and electron are coming of age with tons of backlog changes which WILL be disruptive here. and the pi hardware is changing too

[BKeyport]

@sdetweil yes. Of course it’s not significant. What is significant is that features get removed without a replacement, or the replacement not being able to do the same thing the original did. Short sighted things like that. I get it, onward and upward, but fill out the replacement before eliminating the original.

[sdetweil]

@BKeyport yeh, sadly continuity is no longer valued. Time to market is everything. If something breaks, the consumer will refactor or their usage will die, and not be a problem after all.