Skip to content

Datastead RTSP/RTMP/HTTP/ONVIF DirectShow Source Filter

The Datastead RTSP/RTMP/HTTP/ONVIF DirectShow Source Filter SDK records and/or decodes ONVIF, RTSP, RTSPS, RTMP, HTTP, HTTPS, UDP, TCP, MMS and RTP streams.

It can:

  • decompress the audio and video streams to render them,
  • report the camera NTP timestamp for each video frame decoded,
  • record the streams to various video formats with or without recompression,
  • send audio to an IP camera backchannel,
  • capture snapshots,
  • re-stream the source to UDP or RTSP.

Using the filter from the TVideoGrabber SDK?

When the filter is used through the TVideoGrabber SDK, most of the DirectShow chapters of this documentation can be ignored: TVideoGrabber builds and configures the graph automatically, and the non-default filter settings are simply appended at the end of the URL. See Using from TVideoGrabber.

Features

The filter is able to:

  • decode IP cameras and live audio/video sources received through ONVIF, RTSP, RTSPS, RTMP, HTTP, HTTPS, UDP, RTP, SDP, MMS/MMSH protocols,
  • decode many codecs, including H264, H264+, HEVC (H265), H265+, MJPEG and MPEG-4,
  • decode IP cameras in HTTP/JPEG, HTTP/MJPEG or MXPEG mode,
  • return the decompressed bitmaps or raw video samples through callbacks,
  • record audio/video streams to files without video recompression (mp4, mov, mkv, avi, flv, webm, asf, wmv, ts, mpg, and the h264 / hevc elementary streams),
  • record audio/video streams to files after video recompression,
  • send an audio source to the IP camera audio backchannel (RTSP and SIP protocols supported),
  • while recording is running, generate new files on the fly without losing frames and without pausing/stopping/restarting the graph,
  • connect asynchronously to URLs without blocking the main thread (the filter graph receives a notification when the connection completes),
  • control the PTZ, focus and IR-cut filter of ONVIF cameras,
  • expose uncompressed pins,
  • capture snapshots to memory bitmaps or to files in BMP, JPG, PNG or TIFF format,
  • apply text overlays over decoded frames,
  • adjust brightness, hue, saturation,
  • re-stream the source URL to another destination in UDP unicast, UDP multicast, RTMP or RTSP format,
  • act as a RTSP server to re-stream the URL(s),
  • use an audio capture device as audio source (instead of the audio stream of the source URL, if any),
  • perform backtimed recording (pre-roll recording),
  • return the streams and ONVIF information as strings or as XML text.

What's new

The changelog can be found here.

Download

The evaluation package can be downloaded here:

https://www.datastead.com/downloads/

License

Our license is a per-developer, royalty-free license.

Once the license has been purchased, the application developed with the filter can be distributed on as many PCs as needed, without any end-user fee.

The license can be purchased from our online store:

https://www.datastead.com/purchase/

Evaluation version

The evaluation version is intended only for testing the product and determining whether it suits the needs of the project. Production use requires the licensed version.

Limitations of the evaluation version:

  • an "evaluation" logo appears over the decoded video frames,
  • the "Datastead Audio To Backchannel" filter emits a periodic beep,
  • the recording stops after 2 minutes.

These limitations are removed in the licensed version.