5 ms·

MediaMTX: Zero-dependency server for live video and audio streams

69 points by ph4ni 3y ago

nateroling 3y ago
Would this be a usable alternative to Plex’s Watch Together? Could I host a live stream of a movie and have friends watch it in sync?
- caladin 3y ago
  If you can get the file to your friend, you'd be better off using syncplay. Basically, you watch the file natively in your own player like mpv, vlc, etc. and syncplay will manage syncing all of your pauses, seeks, etc.
pyrox 3y ago
This link is useless, it just links to a substack article with a basic single-paragraph description of the project. A better link would be https://github.com/bluenviron/mediamtx https://github.com/bluenviron/mediamtx, the actual URL to the project.
- sieabahlpark 3y ago
  [dead]
- T-A 3y ago
  > This link is useless, it just links to a substack article with a basic single-paragraph description of the project. In general, I too prefer a straight link to the repo. But in this particular case, that's literally the first thing in the post, which does an excellent job of summarizing what it's about and is immediately followed by a lengthy interview with the author.
  - fuzzfactor 3y ago
    The interview with the author does have more wide-reaching implications than any one project. How many other highly proficient developers have the experience to state: >What’s your most controversial programming opinion? >>I’ll answer by considering the reaction of my colleagues that followed the opinion >>Personally, I don’t like class inheritance, a concept that is present in most programming languages. The voice of someone who needs to get more out of his code.
smokeydoe 3y ago
I use MediaMTX. It’s great. Streaming to ~200 clients flawlessly. The only thing I wish it had was some basic webhook functionality to notify stream statuses.
- sitkack 3y ago
  So you want the server to make an HTTP call to an endpoint to deliver when streams change their status? https://github.com/bluenviron/mediamtx/issues/1462 https://github.com/bluenviron/mediamtx/issues/1462 Looks like there might be a work around.
doctorpangloss 3y ago
> supporting Apple devices is always a challenge > I spent an entire day to find out why a video stream... was causing a blank screen on Chrome WebRTC has three implementations: Chrome's libwebrtc, Mobile Safari's libwebrtc, and things that don't work. I understand Alessandro's frustrations: Video standards aren't.
- Sean-Der 3y ago
  If Google’s WebRTC implementation is the only one that works how does anything WebRTC work? The majority of WebRTC media calls aren’t P2P. What does Google WebRTC do that you can’t find anywhere else? What do you think would be better then the video standards we have today?
bengl3rt 3y ago
rstp-simple-server is fantastic, I use it for all kinds of stuff and appreciate how easy it is to deploy. More software should eschew having a million dependencies and focus on doing one thing WELL :)
- ElongatedMusket 3y ago
  I'm a programmer that doesn't really understand anything about media streaming. What is a good use case for this project? I can't decipher it from the description. It can read and publish media streams. What does that do?
  - kretaceous 3y ago
    I have used MediaMTX to proxy IP camera feeds to custom web pages. IP cameras generally stream through the Real time Streaming Protocol (RTSP). This cannot be directly played in the web and also requires authentication in most cases. MediaMTX acts as a proxy to convert RTSP→WebRTC and take care of the authentication.
    - ElongatedMusket 3y ago
      Thanks - that alone is a good example to help illustrate what it can do, appreciate it!
- Sesse__ 3y ago
  mediamtx has 50 dependencies...
  - throwaway894345 3y ago
    Presumably it means no runtime dependencies? A lot of media software requires you to have a bunch of libraries installed via system package manager, so I’m guessing this is intending to contrast with that?
smcleod 3y ago
FYI until recently this was known as 'rtsp-simple-server', but it outgrew simply being a RTSP server so it was rebranded. It is commonly used in the 3D printing community for serving webcams attached to printers along with ustreamer (https://github.com/pikvm/ustreamer https://github.com/pikvm/ustreamer).

69 points by ph4ni 3y ago

Would this be a usable alternative to Plex’s Watch Together? Could I host a live stream of a movie and have friends watch it in sync?

caladin 3y ago
If you can get the file to your friend, you'd be better off using syncplay. Basically, you watch the file natively in your own player like mpv, vlc, etc. and syncplay will manage syncing all of your pauses, seeks, etc.

pyrox 3y ago

This link is useless, it just links to a substack article with a basic single-paragraph description of the project. A better link would be https://github.com/bluenviron/mediamtx https://github.com/bluenviron/mediamtx, the actual URL to the project.

sieabahlpark 3y ago
[dead]
T-A 3y ago
> This link is useless, it just links to a substack article with a basic single-paragraph description of the project. In general, I too prefer a straight link to the repo. But in this particular case, that's literally the first thing in the post, which does an excellent job of summarizing what it's about and is immediately followed by a lengthy interview with the author.
- fuzzfactor 3y ago
  The interview with the author does have more wide-reaching implications than any one project. How many other highly proficient developers have the experience to state: >What’s your most controversial programming opinion? >>I’ll answer by considering the reaction of my colleagues that followed the opinion >>Personally, I don’t like class inheritance, a concept that is present in most programming languages. The voice of someone who needs to get more out of his code.

smokeydoe 3y ago

I use MediaMTX. It’s great. Streaming to ~200 clients flawlessly. The only thing I wish it had was some basic webhook functionality to notify stream statuses.

sitkack 3y ago
So you want the server to make an HTTP call to an endpoint to deliver when streams change their status? https://github.com/bluenviron/mediamtx/issues/1462 https://github.com/bluenviron/mediamtx/issues/1462 Looks like there might be a work around.

doctorpangloss 3y ago

> supporting Apple devices is always a challenge > I spent an entire day to find out why a video stream... was causing a blank screen on Chrome WebRTC has three implementations: Chrome's libwebrtc, Mobile Safari's libwebrtc, and things that don't work. I understand Alessandro's frustrations: Video standards aren't.

Sean-Der 3y ago
If Google’s WebRTC implementation is the only one that works how does anything WebRTC work? The majority of WebRTC media calls aren’t P2P. What does Google WebRTC do that you can’t find anywhere else? What do you think would be better then the video standards we have today?

bengl3rt 3y ago

rstp-simple-server is fantastic, I use it for all kinds of stuff and appreciate how easy it is to deploy. More software should eschew having a million dependencies and focus on doing one thing WELL :)

ElongatedMusket 3y ago
I'm a programmer that doesn't really understand anything about media streaming. What is a good use case for this project? I can't decipher it from the description. It can read and publish media streams. What does that do?
- kretaceous 3y ago
  I have used MediaMTX to proxy IP camera feeds to custom web pages. IP cameras generally stream through the Real time Streaming Protocol (RTSP). This cannot be directly played in the web and also requires authentication in most cases. MediaMTX acts as a proxy to convert RTSP→WebRTC and take care of the authentication.
  - ElongatedMusket 3y ago
    Thanks - that alone is a good example to help illustrate what it can do, appreciate it!
Sesse__ 3y ago
mediamtx has 50 dependencies...
- throwaway894345 3y ago
  Presumably it means no runtime dependencies? A lot of media software requires you to have a bunch of libraries installed via system package manager, so I’m guessing this is intending to contrast with that?

smcleod 3y ago

FYI until recently this was known as 'rtsp-simple-server', but it outgrew simply being a RTSP server so it was rebranded. It is commonly used in the 3D printing community for serving webcams attached to printers along with ustreamer (https://github.com/pikvm/ustreamer https://github.com/pikvm/ustreamer).