Real Time Streaming Protocol (RTSP)

Wishlist Wishes Granted
552

Hi there. This is Arthur from Wyze.

Since its release, the RTSP firmware had been downloaded to more than 2000 devices. Thank you all for supporting this feature, and sincerely I am sorry for some ongoing issues that undermine its performance.

The current RTSP version is still the beta version. We received many valuable feedback, and we are working on fixes. The updated version is scheduled to release around May 8th.

Here is a list of what we know and what we are doing:

A. Connection drop:

  1. I received 16 reports on this issue, mostly with Blue Iris, iSpy and Motion Eye.
  2. Symptom: As the RTSP connection drops, Live View is still good, and the feed could be restored by turning off and on the RTSP toggle, or by rebooting the camera.
  3. I received error code 800274D from Blue Iris. Our engineer suspects it was caused by Router functions that limits local network data flow, such as Airtime Fairness, advanced setting for Netgear & Asus routers.
  4. We are currently testing a new version of firmware with all the mentioned players to see if we could prevent this issue.
  5. For some user, this issue was solved by:
    (1). Adding the cameras (e.g. to Motion Eye) as RTSP/UDP camera
    (2). Switch to RTSP over TCP
    (3). Blue Iris settings example: https://global.discourse-cdn.com/wyze/original/2X/d/da2686bb28abfe958c6d95f539185a69ac753ea8.png

B. Other devices in the same network drop offline when RTSP is on:

  1. I received 5 reports on this issue. It does not always happen, and resolved automatically in the next day.
  2. All users stated that their network should have more than enough bandwidth.
  3. Our engineers suspect it could be caused by:
    (1). Conflicting IP address or other router related settings
    (2). Overall network usage is too high.
  4. We are trying to reproduce this issue, but not yet achieved. If you are in similar situation, please send me the camera Mac address and the type of router you are using to hzuo@wyze.com. Thank you.
  5. For some user, this issue was solved by:
    (1). Assign static IP or reserve DHCP for the camera to avoid possible conflicts.
    (2). Change video resolution to SD or 360P

C. Frame Skip

  1. This issue refers to “stuttering” video that jumps every few seconds. This issue happens mostly to iSpy and PotPlayer, and in one case Omxplayer on Raspberry Pi.
  2. It happens when the player did not complete playing the 2 seconds of each video clip, before the new clip (i-frame) came in and refreshed the video, skipping several not-yet-played frames.
  3. Suspected causes:
    (1). video player software limiting frame rate to lower than 15fps to preserve CPU usage, but this does not always produce the “stuttering” effect.
    (2). Player or device issue causes decoding and playing to be slower than necessary.
    (3). Connection not stable, bit rate fluctuated to lower than necessary level periodically.
  4. We are testing some changes to improve this issue.
  5. For some user, this issue was solved by:
    (1). Switching to other players (e.g. VLC)
    (2). Increase buffer size / video caching time.
    (3). Change video resolution to SD or 360P

D. Delay, comparing to Wyze App Live View

  1. I received many reports on this, but only less than 10 users reported longer than 5 second delay.
  2. According to our engineer, the implementation of RTSP data transmission would require it to buffer 2~3 video clips (2 second each) before sending one out. That is 4~6 seconds in buffering. Comparing to Wyze App Live View feed that sends out every frame and buffers less than 2s, RTSP would be 2~5 seconds behind.
  3. Currently we do not know how to reduce it beyond 2~5 seconds. We are collecting reports on longer than 5 seconds delays, and we should be able to fix that part.
  4. For some user, longer than 5 second delays was solved by:
    (1). Changing video quality to SD or 360P, and reducing player caching time.

Thank you for reading through this. We are definitely working on improving the RTSP version of firmware, but it will take time, especially that the cause to some of the issues are unknown and we have not yet reproduced it in our office.

If you run into any of the above issues, or if you have experience solving any of them, please post it here.
If it involves personal or device information, please send it to hzuo@wyze.com.
Thank you.
Arthur.

14 Likes