Testing low-latency live streams on a Raspberry Pi 5 and Camera Module 3

I achieved a 200-millisecond delay in streaming by comparing several live stream types as outlined in the official documentation and by using mediaMTX.

Youtube video

Native UDP Stream

Rasberry PI command:

rpicam-vid -t 0 --width 1280 --height 720 --framerate 30 --inline -o udp://LAPTOP_IP_HERE:5555

Player command

ffplay udp://RASPBERRY_PI_IP_HERE:5555 -fflags nobuffer -flags low_delay -framedrop

Native TCP Stream

Rasberry PI command:

rpicam-vid -t 0 --width 1280 --height 720 --framerate 30 --inline --listen -o tcp://0.0.0.0:5556

Player command

ffplay tcp://RASPBERRY_PI_IP_HERE:5556 -vf "setpts=N/30" -fflags nobuffer -flags low_delay -framedrop

LibAV TCP Stream

Rasberry PI command:

rpicam-vid -t 0 --width 1280 --height 720 --framerate 30 --codec libav --libav-format mpegts --libav-audio -o "tcp://0.0.0.0:1234?listen=1"

Player command

ffplay tcp://RASPBERRY_PI_IP_HERE:1234 -vf "setpts=N/30" -fflags nobuffer -flags low_delay -framedrop

LibAV UDP Stream

Rasberry PI command:

rpicam-vid -t 0 --width 1280 --height 720 --framerate 30 --codec libav --libav-format mpegts --libav-audio  -o "udp://192.168.1.66:5555"

Player command

ffplay udp://RASPBERRY_PI_IP_HERE:5555 -fflags nobuffer -flags low_delay -framedrop

MediaMTX

Make sure that you have ffmpeg:

sudo apt-get install ffmpeg

MediaMTX Config (see video for details)

  cam1:
    runOnInit: bash -c 'rpicam-vid -t 0 --camera 0 --nopreview --codec yuv420 --width 1280 --height 720 --inline --listen -o - | ffmpeg -f rawvideo -pix_fmt yuv420p -s:v 1280x720 -i /dev/stdin -c:v libx264 -preset ultrafast -tune zerolatency -f rtsp rtsp://localhost:$RTSP_PORT/$MTX_PATH'
    runOnInitRestart: yes

RTSP Player command

vlc rtsp://RASPBERRY_PI_IP_HERE:8554/cam1

WebRTC Player command

http://RASPBERRY_PI_IP_HERE:8889/cam1

Licence:

Copyright 2024 Ievgenii Tkachenko

Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License"); you may not use this file except in compliance with the License. You may obtain a copy of the License at

http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0

Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS, WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied. See the License for the specific language governing permissions and limitations under the License.