RTSP Bit Stream Graphing for IP Cameras?

[Psmit]

Long time listener, first time caller.

Having been a long time former Cacti user in a past life (the very, very early days of broadband), I find myself drawn back to its incredible versatility these days for my own home networking folly and recreation.

While not exactly immersed in all the Smart Home stuff, I do have a rather robust general purpose home network that, among other things, supports a fairly extensive Blue Iris - based surveillance setup with a mix of both POE and wifi IP cameras. It's all Windows based.

Monitoring the cameras is relatively straightforward -- obviously. There's a stream, or there isn't..., for the most part. Bit rates are provided at various levels and locations among the individual camera firmware/software sources, along with the various capabilities provided by Blue Iris itself. All of these options are simply real-time bit stream counters listening on RTSP port 554 and displayed in variable alpha-numeric fashion. No pretty pictures displayed over time to easily indicate anomolies or problems that could be adversely affecting the quality of the stream itself.

I've searched and come up empty for a clean and simple bit stream graphing solution that doesn't require either SNMP or an SNMP intermediary agent setup. There is a group called "10-Strike Software" that offers such a feature in one of their products for Windows. From the general description, it just sounds like a real-time bit rate counter listening on RTSP port 554 to monitor and graph IP camera bit streams -- or any other RTSP sources for that matter. The problem is..., the package which includes this particular feature is pretty pricey and everything else it does can already be accomplished by Cacti anyway -- for the most part.

These are the folks and their offerings. https://www.10-strike.com/

So where would one start in soliciting an effort (or efforts) to develop similar (or superior) feature for Cacti? It would certainly find many enthusiastic users in fairly short order once its availability became widely known -- unless, of course, there is already such a script for Cacti that is slightly less than widely known and doesn't show up in any search term I've been able to conjur up so far.

A basic bit stream / bit rate monitoring solution for IP cameras that makes pretty graphs..., please?

Thanks in advance for any enlightenment or sources for such a solution (if one for Cacti indeed already exists in some form or another).

Psmit

[TheWitness]

I started a stream plugin, but lost interest. The design is all done, at least from the high level, but I kind of need something to motivate me to finish it before I forget how it was supposed to work. I have to look at RTSP and see how it workie.

[TheWitness]

Tell me how you access metrics for the device? There are so many possible protocols.

[Psmit]

Mucho appreciation for the response.

This overview from the 10-Strike folks provides a general scope of the parameters for IP cam monitoring.
https://www.10-strike.com/network-monit ... ring.shtml

RFC2326 is the the whole bag o' snakes.

The Blue Iris server monitors bitrate, frame rate, uptime and a few other feature specific aspects of all the devices it is configured to see in real time -- just in a tabular form as shown in the attached. Fully functioning demos of both Blue Iris and the !0-Strike software are available for pecking at if they would be of any assistance.

If you're not familar with Blue Iris, it's a one man band package that over the years has become the preeminent standalone surveilance platforn out there (short of the mega-buck enterprise solutions}. The developer seems fairly accessible (relatively speaking) and is still essentially the 'support infrastructure' at several different levels depending on subscription and user license. My license provides email support and could possibly get his attention with any questions you may have that can't be answered otherwise. He seems fairly active with his customer base and may even find a cool IP cam graphing utility project worthy of his input/assistance.

Regardless, there is quite a large (and growing) security cam demographic out there these days -- both professional and homeowner. More and more are gravitating to the power and versatility of Blue Iris over brand specific and proprietary cloud-based and/or NVR/DVR solutions. A dedicated monitoring/graphing solution for such users, (even those with proprietary systems that conform to RTSP), could grow wings pretty fast -- especially on the Windows platform.

Again, many thanks for even considering this. I'm more than happy to be the guinea pig for anything you may have the time or interest to develop. If it's not something you want to undertake, I'll certainly understand that too.

Psmit

edit: I seem unable to attach or insert an image. Will post the image of the Blue Iris Status table when I figure it out.

[TheWitness]

TheWitness@cacti.net

[Psmit]

The image I was unable to attach here was sent to the address you provided back on the 7th. Curious if you received it.

[TheWitness]

Yea, I got everything. I'm trying to make time. Got one project ahead right now. Needs access to hardware to be able to do any development. That's also something I'm lacking. I just bought a UPS to do finish the other project. You can guess what it's about.

[Psmit]

Standing by if there's anything else I may be able to provide.

Thanks. And good luck with the 'current' project. <rimshot/cymbal crash>

Sorry. I'll go now. LOL