StreamPulse Origins – The Prototypes That Started It All

StreamPulse Origins – The Journey from Raw Scripts to a Microservice

Before StreamPulse became a fully functional microservice with a Flask GUI and SQLite backend, it began as a collection of experimental scripts designed to test real-world RTSP and MJPEG camera health monitoring.

These early prototypes, now available in the legacy_prototypes/ folder, capture the project's evolution step by step — from low-level OpenCV-based testing to multi-threaded heartbeats and data logging.

What These Versions Explored

• RTSP frame capture & timestamp validation
• MJPEG continuous stream handling
• CPU, memory, and network load monitoring
• Latency & jitter calculation
• Multi-camera parallel testing

📂 Included Prototypes

File	Focus
1-working-rtsp-log-(cv).py	Early OpenCV-based RTSP frame capture & CSV logging
2-me-stream-receive.py	MJPEG stream receiver with system performance tracking
3-rtsp_sender_logger.py	Simulated RTSP camera sender using FFmpeg
3-rtsp_receiver_logger.py	Receiver-side latency and frame drop analysis
4-rtsp_heartbest.py	Multi-threaded RTSP heartbeat system – the direct ancestor of StreamPulse

Outcome

These experiments helped identify:

• Optimal interval timing for heartbeat checks
• Tradeoffs between OpenCV and FFmpeg performance
• The need for async scheduling over threading
• Why SQLite was chosen for persistent, lightweight logging

Legacy → v1 Transition

All learnings from these prototypes were integrated into StreamPulse v1,
which unified the health monitoring logic, time synchronization, and logging into one stable service.

Timeline: 2024 → Early 2025

License: MIT (same as StreamPulse)