Failure to play h264 video stream using VideoGstplayer

[derekbrokeit]

I am bringing this issue from stackoverflow because I found the issue-tracker.

I have a c++ program that uses live555 in a winapi kernel event-loop that passes images from a camera to libopenh264 and then served as an RTSP stream using ffmpeg. The stream can be viewed fine using VLC. The event-loop also records to an avi container.

I wanted to setup a remote-viewing client using kivy using the simple kvlang below:

BoxLayout:
    orientation: "vertical"
    Video:
        source: "rtsp://ip.address:8554/stream"
        play: True

The window does not display a Video object, and the logging output has the following errors

[ERROR             ] [Image       ] Error reading file rtsp://ip.address:8554/stream
# ...
[ERROR             ] [VideoGstplayer] Could not open resource for reading and writing.

When I change the stream encoding to MJPEG, the video player displays the live video without errors (except a single error under Image). Furthermore, when I change source to the file-path of the h264 encoded avi file that is recorded, it plays without errors. Is there a configuration that can alert the VideoGstplayer of the expected encoding? Alternatively, is there a problem with my stream setup that the provided kivy player cannot read it properly? Perhaps I am missing a gstreamer dll, but the message does not alert me to anything such as that.

I have a working version of openh264, so I am wondering if the gstreamer implementation (inside the wheel) needs to be compiled with additional libraries in order to use h264. Although, I am left wondering why it can play recorded h264 video and not a stream. Could this be a problem with gop-size?

This was all performed on windows using the basic installation instructions for installing python-dependencies. kivy version being used is 1.9.1. Thank you for any help, I am new to kivy.

[derekbrokeit]

Just to add another data point. I tried this using a purely python implementation (examples\widgets\videoplayer.py) and found the same results. Although, in this case, using the h264 stream actually crashed the program. On the bright side, an MJPEG stream plays after a few seconds.

Side Note: It is also somewhat surprising to see the additional widgets (stop/play, audio, loading) when running this from the python version without a kvlang implementation. Is there a reason for the difference between kvlang and python Video player implementations?

[FeralBytes]

@derekbrokeit Please provide full logs of both implementations; also please provide full source code implementations. Thank you.

[Zen-CODE]

@derekbrokeit. The difference may be the using the 'Video' vs. 'VideoPlayer' widgets? As for the h264 issue, sorry, beyond my ken :-)

[stale[bot]]

This issue has been automatically marked as stale because it has not had recent activity. It will be closed if no further activity occurs. Thank you for your contributions.

[tshirtman]

just tried to make an example of displaying an rtsp stream using gstplayer, and it indeed doesn't work.

from kivy.app import App
from kivy.lang import Builder

KV = '''
Video:
    source: 'rtsp://freja.hiof.no:1935/rtplive/_definst_/hessdalen03.stream'
    state: 'play'
'''

class StreamApp(App):
    def build(self):
        return Builder.load_string(KV)

if __name__ == '__main__':
    StreamApp().run()

[INFO   ] [Logger      ] Record log in /home/gabriel/.kivy/logs/kivy_19-05-25_2.txt
[INFO   ] [Kivy        ] v1.11.0.dev0, git-0f39c0d, 20190508
[INFO   ] [Kivy        ] Installed at "/home/gabriel/dev/kivy/kivy/__init__.py"
[INFO   ] [Python      ] v3.6.3 (default, Oct  3 2017, 21:45:48) 
[GCC 7.2.0]
[INFO   ] [Python      ] Interpreter at "/home/gabriel/.virtualenvs/kivy36/bin/python"
[INFO   ] [Factory     ] 184 symbols loaded
[DEBUG  ] [Cache       ] register <kv.lang> with limit=None, timeout=None
[DEBUG  ] [Cache       ] register <kv.image> with limit=None, timeout=60
[DEBUG  ] [Cache       ] register <kv.atlas> with limit=None, timeout=None
[INFO   ] [ImageLoaderFFPy] Using ffpyplayer 4.0.1
[INFO   ] [Image       ] Providers: img_tex, img_dds, img_sdl2, img_pil, img_ffpyplayer, img_gif 
[DEBUG  ] [Cache       ] register <kv.texture> with limit=1000, timeout=60
[DEBUG  ] [Cache       ] register <kv.shader> with limit=1000, timeout=3600
[DEBUG  ] [App         ] Loading kv <./stream.kv>
[DEBUG  ] [App         ] kv <./stream.kv> not found
[INFO   ] [VideoGstplayer] Using Gstreamer 1.14.1.0
[INFO   ] [Video       ] Provider: gstplayer
[DEBUG  ] [Window      ] Ignored <egl_rpi> (import error)
[INFO   ] [Window      ] Provider: sdl2(['window_egl_rpi'] ignored)
[INFO   ] [GL          ] Using the "OpenGL" graphics system
[INFO   ] [GL          ] Backend used <sdl2>
[INFO   ] [GL          ] OpenGL version <b'3.0 Mesa 18.2.8'>
[INFO   ] [GL          ] OpenGL vendor <b'Intel Open Source Technology Center'>
[INFO   ] [GL          ] OpenGL renderer <b'Mesa DRI Intel(R) HD Graphics 620 (Kaby Lake GT2) '>
[INFO   ] [GL          ] OpenGL parsed version: 3, 0
[INFO   ] [GL          ] Shading version <b'1.30'>
[INFO   ] [GL          ] Texture max size <16384>
[INFO   ] [GL          ] Texture max units <32>
[DEBUG  ] [Shader      ] Fragment compiled successfully
[DEBUG  ] [Shader      ] Vertex compiled successfully
[DEBUG  ] [ImageSDL2   ] Load </home/gabriel/dev/kivy/kivy/data/glsl/default.png>
[INFO   ] [Window      ] auto add sdl2 input provider
[INFO   ] [Window      ] virtual keyboard not allowed, single mode, not docked
[ERROR  ] [Image       ] Error reading file rtsp://freja.hiof.no:1935/rtplive/_definst_/hessdalen03.stream
[DEBUG  ] [Base        ] Create provider from mouse
[DEBUG  ] [Base        ] Create provider from probesysfs,match=LGDisplay
[DEBUG  ] [ProbeSysfs  ] using probesysfs!
[DEBUG  ] [ProbeSysfs  ] found device: SynPS/2 Synaptics TouchPad at /dev/input/event5
[DEBUG  ] [ProbeSysfs  ] found device: Melfas LGDisplay Incell Touch at /dev/input/event6
[INFO   ] [ProbeSysfs  ] device match: /dev/input/event6
[INFO   ] [MTD         ] Read event from </dev/input/event6>
[INFO   ] [Base        ] Start application main loop
[DEBUG  ] [VideoGstplayer] Load <rtsp://freja.hiof.no:1935/rtplive/_definst_/hessdalen03.stream>
[INFO   ] [MTD         ] </dev/input/event6> range position X is 0 - 4095
[INFO   ] [MTD         ] </dev/input/event6> range position Y is 0 - 4095
[INFO   ] [MTD         ] </dev/input/event6> range touch major is 0 - 0
[INFO   ] [MTD         ] </dev/input/event6> range touch minor is 0 - 0
[INFO   ] [MTD         ] </dev/input/event6> range pressure is 0 - 255
[INFO   ] [MTD         ] </dev/input/event6> axes invertion: X is 0, Y is 0
[INFO   ] [MTD         ] </dev/input/event6> rotation set to 0
[ERROR  ] [VideoGstplayer] b'Could not get/set settings from/on resource.'
[ERROR  ] [VideoGstplayer] b'GStreamer error: state change failed and some element failed to post a proper error message with the reason for the failure.'
[ERROR  ] [VideoGstplayer] b'Could not get/set settings from/on resource.'
[ERROR  ] [VideoGstplayer] b'GStreamer error: state change failed and some element failed to post a proper error message with the reason for the failure.'
[WARNING] [VideoGstplayer] b'Could not read from resource.'
[INFO   ] [WindowSDL   ] exiting mainloop and closing.
[INFO   ] [Base        ] Leaving application in progress...

(the stream currently displays fine in vlc, though couldn't find the proper command to display it in gst-play yet)

edit: similar result with ffpyplayer

[INFO   ] [MTD         ] </dev/input/event6> axes invertion: X is 0, Y is 0
[INFO   ] [MTD         ] </dev/input/event6> rotation set to 0
[WARNING] [ffpyplayer  ] [tcp @ 0x7f692c003760] Connection to tcp://freja.hiof.no:1935?timeout=0 failed (Connection refused), trying next address
[INFO   ] [Base        ] Leaving application in progress...
[INFO   ] [WindowSDL   ] exiting mainloop and closing.

[anphxyz]

Hi @tshirtman, I have a question. Can Kivy support VLC resource?

[drakorg]

Hi, has there been any advance with this issue about playing rtsp streams in kivy via VideoGstplayer or any other component?

[Julian-O]

Tried to repro on Windows. Failed to find a public RTSP stream to test on! All the examples I found were long dead.