{"id":1768,"date":"2015-07-08T21:49:34","date_gmt":"2015-07-08T20:49:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/andyland.info\/wordpress\/?p=1768"},"modified":"2018-09-16T16:06:28","modified_gmt":"2018-09-16T15:06:28","slug":"syphon-to-rtmp","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/andyland.info\/wordpress\/syphon-to-rtmp\/","title":{"rendered":"Syphon to RTMP"},"content":{"rendered":"

This idea caught me a while back and it took quite some effort to rebuild it from the leftovers a few days ago. Kids don’t forget: The only difference between noodling around and being a true specialiologist (they don’t call me “Doktor Andy” for nothing) lies in a reusable form of documentation. Fortunately I got this website. What would I do without it.<\/p>\n

<TL; DR> video from Mac to Raspberry via network<\/TL; DR><\/p>\n

The approach uses Syphon, Open Broadcaster Software (obs), nginx and Omxplayer. I guess this ain’t too revolutionary. Using RTMP is quite a common task to distribute video. But it’s a good idea to have it all written down at least once. Furthermore I couldn’t find any kind of writeup like this covering this topic so … it’s okay.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

This is the setup. It consists of a MacBook running VDMX and 2 Raspberry Pies (well, and a monitor).<\/p>\n

\"CIMG0616\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Starting with the MacBook I am running VDMX and obs (Open Broadcaster Software)<\/a>. VDMX sends its main output via Syphon into obs. Obs, on the other hand, streams it to an RTMP server which is setup on the first of two Raspberry Pies (‘vidserv’, the orange one in the upper picture). The picture below shows how everything is configured on the MacBook. VDMX’s Syphon plugin in the top left corner. Of course, any layer could be selected and sent out via Syphon. The lower right square showing something green is VDMX’s output. The ‘more center-left’ green footage is the preview in obs and shows that it works – at least the first step.<\/p>\n

\"Bildschirmfoto<\/a><\/p>\n

This picture shows obs’s settings-dialog (German… but I think you’ll find this in other languages as well). Click to enlarge. See how I changed the stream type to ‘user defined streaming-server’ and the URL to rtmp:\/\/vidserv\/live<\/strong>\u00a0\u00a0 . The stream’s key (which is asterisk’ed) is ‘test<\/strong>‘. Remember that ‘vidserv’ ist the hostname of the first raspberry receiving the video data from my MacBook.<\/p>\n

\"Bildschirmfoto<\/a><\/p>\n

In order for the first Raspberry being able to receive and process the video stream coming from the MacBook I installed a software called nginx. Though I tried a few different approaches and am not quite sure about every step I did any more (…) I am quite sure that most of the pieces of information that helped me came from the obs website<\/a> itself. I am very much of a Linux noob but got it done. So don’t worry… it IS possible.<\/p>\n

At one point you have to configure nginx using a config file. The obs website<\/a> states the lines below as an example. See the string I marked in bold (‘live’). Guess why the URL of the streaming server is rtmp:\/\/vidserv\/live\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/strong>.<\/p>\n

rtmp {\n        server {\n                listen 1935;\n                chunk_size 4096;\n\n                application live<\/strong> {\n                        live on;\n                        record off;\n                }\n        }\n}<\/pre>\n
You have to have the first Raspberry (‘vidserv’) up and running before you can start streaming from obs. Otherwise it will tell you.<\/p>\n
The second Raspberry (‘vidclient’) is connected to the monitor and is running an instance of Omxplayer from the command line:\u00a0 omxplayer –live –threshold 0 rtmp:\/\/vidserv\/live\/test<\/strong>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 . Remember that ‘live’ was configured in the nginx-configfile and ‘test’ was the asterisk’ed streaming key we set within obs. See how it doesn’t work on the first try at all…<\/p>\n