ffmpeg stream and save video from Dahua 4300s IP Camera

readme.md

Use ffmpeg to stream video from a dahua 4300s to a file or files

You can use ffmpeg to directly pull frames off of a dahua 4300s at full resolution. May be a good alternative to pricey dvrs which likely cannot record at full resolution, may not work with the camera, or are prohibitevly expensive

Simple Stream to file

Simple stream to file. Full resolution

ffmpeg -loglevel debug -rtsp_transport tcp -i "rtsp://admin:admin@198.175.207.61:554/live" \
-c copy -map 0 foo.mp4

Break streamed file into time segments

ffmpeg can save file in arbitrary segments at fixed intervals. In this example, we save a new file at 10 second intervals, but the value for segment_time can be any positive integer

ffmpeg  -rtsp_transport tcp -i "rtsp://admin:admin@198.175.207.61:554/live"  \
-f segment -segment_time 10 -segment_format mp4 -reset_timestamps 1 \
-c copy -map 0 test%d.mp4

Timestamped output

Output files can be timestamped as well.

ffmpeg  -rtsp_transport tcp -i "rtsp://admin:admin@198.175.207.135:554/live" \
-f segment -segment_time 10 -segment_format mp4  -reset_timestamps 1 \
-strftime 1 -c copy -map 0 dauphine-%Y%m%d-%H%M%S.mp4

Select stream to read from.

A different url is used to select the substream. Set subtype to 0 for main hi-res stream, or 1 for low res substream. Channel looks to always be set to 1

ffmpeg  -rtsp_transport tcp -i "rtsp://admin:admin@198.175.207.135:554/cam/realmonitor?channel=1&subtype=1" \ 
-f segment -segment_time 10 -segment_format mp4  -reset_timestamps 1 \ 
-strftime 1 -c copy -map 0 test-%Y%m%d-%H%M%S.mp4

Nice! It works also with IP 3G Cam V380e aka 360eye, handling properly credential, port and URI to connect through RTSP.

rtsp port is 554 so no need to write it in your input url

save my life!!! thanks

I am using a variation of this command combined with a bash script+cron. I run ffmpeg with the -t flag to only run for 310 seconds. Then I have cron call the script every 5 minutes. This way I end up with a new file every 5 minutes with a ~10 second overlap. This makes it resilient if the ipcam goes offline for a few minutes due to reboot, cron will start a new ffmpeg process within 5 minutes.

Not as elegant as an NVR but it's functional.