IP Camera FMS (flash) Video Howto
This article has now moved to: http://www.geekorgy.com/index.php/2010/06/ip-camera-to-fms-flash-video-howto-osx/
Public date: August 14th, 2009Categories: coding tips
Tags: axis, flash, fms, ip camera fms, justintv, livestream, mogulus, network camera, red5, sony, ustream, wowza, youtube
October 8, 2009
i have updated this now with new functionality and the following camera support;
- sony ipela ptz
- sony ipela standard
- axis camera (all?, tested on 2 models)
with;
- live mixing between multiple resolution inputs (virtual zooming)
- mixing according to real events (triggered by socket commands to camera driver)
all presented to flash as a simple webcam for broadcasting.
October 25, 2009
Do you know if there is a PC version to do the same thing?
I want to pull a live feed of our retreat center on the website so people can see our place in real time through our Axis and Arecont IP cameras.
December 16, 2009
The links to the scripts don’t work; What’s the deal?
December 22, 2009
sorry guys, the links are broken as it has gone under lots of recent changes aswell as the site structure.
email me at alex at quosmo dot com, and ill forward the bits there : if more people post here i will write up a full step-by-step.
it is running, has been running for a year with 4+ broadcast locations, 20+ individual cameras and our own network of FMS relay servers to 50+ concurrent viewers 24/7 : works a charm.
December 22, 2009
Re windows: absolutely possible, infact in my opinion a lot easier to virtualize the camera there are standard windows API’s to do so, a quick C program to grab the network jpegs and publish a ‘fake camera’ shouldnt be too hard.
but no, i have not done it so i dont have anything to give here, but i could give you some pointers — the fact that there are hundreds of ‘fake webcam’ apps for windows that look like they were knocked up in 5 minutes floating around the net leads to me believe it would be quite easy.
again, once you have a ‘fake webcam’ on your system (which is actually getting the frames from the network camera) then flash can be use asif it was any normal webcam : its transparent to flash.
January 7, 2010
Great post. I’m working on something similar and would love to get more details. I don’t mind using Mac OS X, but my client would prefer windows. If you can post the setup for at least the Mac version, I think you would benefit a lot of people. Also, my particular scenario requires multiple IP cameras; will one FMS be able to handle multiple IP cameras in your setup?
January 7, 2010
Hi Haider,
Yes, currently i have a network of 15+ fms edge relay servers for video distribution, and a fms core server which handles 20+ unique feeds (all from IP cameras).
The point of my setup though was not just to put IP camera frames into FMS, but also so that the ‘driver’ could compile inputs from multiple cameras into a single stream.
Check demo.lyvegame.com and click the ‘play’ button (its a DEMO site) : and you will see what i mean about multiple IP cameras compiled into a single stream in FMS, so that you can switch cameras according to dynamic events (such as game-events in a casino)
I dont use windows for any of this, its not stable or secure enough on any level. OSX provides stability and security with very strong flash support and remote administrative tools. You can also get a ‘mac mini’ which is a small machine which is more than capable of encoding/streaming and displaying anything, which is what i use.
I will upload the code somewhere but it wont be easy to sift through because of the dynamic frame compiling it might be a little over complicated for a simple IP->FMS adaptor.
I should make a cut-down version which is working so that people can make a start from there.
but it is certainly entirely possible and the point of this blog is A) to prove it and B) to provide a quick guide C) to give a little example code