# Play RTSP Stream without X11



## tuaris (Aug 2, 2021)

I have an idea for a project that is somewhat inspired by https://www.bitpi.co/2015/03/18/raspberry-pi-surveillance-monitor/ and https://community.ui.com/questions/...m-Viewer/cc54f892-b8d6-46c5-81f3-ee58b9284889.  Not only are those projects outdated (most of the software used is deprecated or unavailable), but it's Linux specific.  I want to do something that uses FreeBSD on a Raspberry Pi 4 or a ROCKPro64.

I'd like to avoid having to install and start X11.  Are there command line only options to stream an RTSP video stream and have it playback directly on FreeBSD's frame buffer (not sure if I'm saying that correctly).  I tried searching this forum, but nothing comes up with "RTSP no X11" or any search related to playing video without X11.

 Is my idea doable? or do I have to settle for running X11?


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## covacat (Aug 2, 2021)

you can probably pipe ffmpeg output to omxplayer (never tried)


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## mer (Aug 2, 2021)

A gstreamer pipeline may also do what you want.  You may need to build the port to only have the support you need.


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## tuaris (Aug 5, 2021)

mer said:


> A gstreamer pipeline may also do what you want.  You may need to build the port to only have the support you need.


What do you mean by this?  I built VLC and mplayer with no X11 dependancies (after a lot of trial and error).  While they do run, they don't have any output options.


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## covacat (Aug 5, 2021)

omxplayer supports rtsp
tested on pi zero
played some security camera streams without problem


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## mer (Aug 5, 2021)

tuaris said:


> What do you mean by this?  I built VLC and mplayer with no X11 dependancies (after a lot of trial and error).  While they do run, they don't have any output options.


I said may as I have not tried it.  gstreamer pipeline can receive the rtsp on one end and the other end should be able to output directly to a hardware device (framebuffer).    As I said, I've never tried it, never had a use case, so I can't give you any more than that.
As for VLC and mplayer I don't know what they support when built without X11.


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## covacat (Aug 5, 2021)

also omxplayer has video-core hw acceleration (you need a rasp-pi for that)
pi zero played h.264 720p @24fps with about 35% cpu load


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