VLC (Server) re-stream Security Camera Feed

h.264surveillancevideo streamingvlc-media-player

I purchased a Swann Home Security DVR system and was hoping for some help on how to duplicate the streaming video on my server.

In order to get their web view (streaming video in the browser) to work, I had to install the following plugins:

HiDvrPlugin.dmg for mac.
Hidvrocx.cab for Windows.

I was originally thinking it was a sign of some form of DRM? Maybe. Maybe not.

HTML wise, the following code is in the source of the safari version of the web view:

<embed pluginspage="SurveilClient.dmg" width="10px" height="10px" type="application/x-scplugin" id="MacDiv" style="height: 592px; width: 720px; left: 278px; top: 61px; ">

It seems to be the main display area.

Using wireshark, I am able to see that the video stream is on port 9000. However, I have no idea what type of stream it is. I've tried opening it in VLC with no such luck.

http://dvr_ip:9000
tcp://dvr_ip:9000

My hope was to do the following to redistribute the feed

vlc dvr_ip:9000 --sout h264-version-on-localhost:3000

TLDR; Trying to re-distribute a stream from a security camera (can't tell the format) using vlc (re-distribute via h.264 / HTML5). Not sure how to accomplish this. Is it possible that the software has some type of DRM that only the plugins can decode?

Best Answer

Someone has already found that Swann uses a proprietary protocol on port 9000: How do I find the video stream URL of my security DVR by myself?

That said, the folks over at iSpy seem to have an extensive list of alternate places you might be able to find the stream in a normal format: http://www.ispyconnect.com/man.aspx?n=Swann

Related Solutions

Stream screen to Youtube with VLC

Initialization problem

YouTube has a weird requirement before you can stream: you have to visit the Streaming page one time to initialize your streaming profile, after you have been approved by their sign-up process.
1. Create your profile.
2. Wait for approval.
3. Visit https://www.youtube.com/live_dashboard once before attempting to stream.
Screenshot: Create stream

Screenshot: Get Started Screen
Stream key (Stream name) problem

I also noticed that you didn't pass a Stream key into VLC. Without a Stream key (Stream name), YouTube will reject any connection. VLC supports this function in the arguments for RTP protocol, so it may support it for the RTMP protocol, but I wouldn't hold my breath. I noticed RTMP is not listed as an available streaming protocol in the GUI for VLC, so I would highly doubt that VLC can even stream RTMP protocol. Adobe has made attempts to punish anyone that uses the RTMPdump open-source project, claiming it is a DMCA violation. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Real-Time_Messaging_Protocol#rtmpdump Because RTMP requires encryption to be viable for streaming securely, VLC may not support streaming to YouTube.

You may be able to stream from VLC to this other app and then have this app pass the stream through the RTMPdump CLI program to YouTube. http://docs.livestreamer.io/install.html#windows-binaries

Screenshot: Find your stream key here
VLC reputation problem

I have tried to get VLC to record desktop screens to a file many times in the past and present, and it has always failed miserably, either refusing to respect the frame rate I select, or encoding the file with incorrect codec tags, resulting in the file only playing audio in a media player, or any other number of problems. VLC is not as robust as its reputation leads people to believe. I would skip VLC entirely and go with a dedicated streaming program, like Open Broadcaster Software Studio (OBS Studio). OBS Studio is the updated version of OBS: https://obsproject.com/

Using ffmpeg to (re)stream camera feed to RTMP server

ffmpeg \
    -i "http://admin:@192.168.0.65/media/?action=stream" \
    -re -f lavfi -i anullsrc \
    -c:v libx264 -vf format=yuv420p -b:v 4000k -bufsize 8000k -maxrate 4000k -g 50 \
    -c:a aac \
    -f flv "rtmp://a.rtmp.youtube.com/live2/[streamkey]"

YouTube requires an audio stream to be present, so add silent audio with the anullsrc filter.
YouTube may not accept yuvj420p pixel format (I did not verify this), so change it to yuv420p.
-f h264 can't be used with audio, so use -f flv.
You probably don't need the -f mjpeg input option.
Declare bitrate and VBV options for streaming, and make -g value to be frame rate x 2.

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