Custom Webcam Support for RTSP Streams

[bam7]

Hello
Is there a guide on adding a custom webcam stream to view within the UI? I don't seem to have any luck adding one. I am using a simple Amcrest webcam.

The stream is an RTSP in the form of:
" rtsp://user:password@xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx:80/cam/realmonitor?channel=1&subtype=0 "

Thank you for any help or advice.

BAM

[GhostTypes]

Hello!
I don't have support yet for RTSP based streams , but will be adding it soon!

[GhostTypes]

Hello!

Sorry for the long delay on this, would you be able to share a link to the camera you have?

I'm having trouble finding a camera that confirms RTSP support without some kind of app account tied to it

I'd like to get this implemented soon and will get to work once I have proper hardware to test 👍

[bam7]

Sure - I have an Amcrest IP4M-1041 and the support link is here

I have other Amcrest and Ubiquity cameras that are a bit older and they all support RTSP but the URL format varies:

Amcrest
rtsp://user:password@IPAddress:Port/cam/realmonitor?channel=1&subtype=0

Ubiquity
rtsp://user:password@IPAddress:Port/s0

[GhostTypes]

This has finally been addressed in 5ec48a4 !

I will be pushing a new pre-release tomorrow afternoon and will leave a link for it here

[GhostTypes]

This release adds proper RTSP support to the desktop and WebUI, and at this time will require ffmpeg to be installed.

The stream is currently locked to 30FPS , but I will be adding proper configuration options for RTSP streams soon (it should have it's own window/section)

I am looking into the best solution to bundle a binary with the application per-platform for a more streamlined setup

I've tested this on the Amcrest ASH21-B, please let me know if you have any issues!

[bam7]

I'm getting RTSP Stream not available.
I got custom camera checked and the RTSP stream URL entered correctly. Verified that the printer is connected and the camera is functional. Is there an instruction I am missing?

Screenshot attached

[GhostTypes]

The only other thing to check for would be that ffmpeg is installed and can be run from the CLI.

If you could start the app from the CLI and send me over those logs, as well as collect them from the UI window (control + shift + I -> console -> right click - copy console) that would be great

[bam7]

I got it working. Most likely it was my config but could be a combination of things.

• Updated FFMPEG - UI use Chocolatey for Windows for package management which seems to be a revision or two behind the latest
• Full removal and re-install of FlashForgeUI to be sure

The most likely culprit is that I found that the camera should only be active in one app at once. Having Orca Slicer open was preventing the printer from communicating to FlashForgeUI, I think. I closed it and the FlashForgeUI interface works.

Another odd behavior I see is the title bar of the app says "FlashForge UI 1.0 - disconnected" when it is clearly connected and printing with the video rendering correctly. I am running the FlashForgeUI.1.0.1-8.exe in Windows 11. Screenshot attached. Thanks for all the progress you have made on this app. It is really slick and I hope I'm providing valuable feedback.

[GhostTypes]

Very glad to see that you got it working!

OrcaSlicer/Orca-FlashForge will cause instability when running alongside FlashForgeUI, as well as the issue you describe with the camera.

FlashForgeUI provides a "mirror" of the camera which allows you to view it on multiple devices, from either the web UI or directly accessing the proxy URL. You can view both from the "Status" tab

The odd title bar behavior is a leftover from refactoring for multi-printer support, and is just a visual bug. I'll get that fixed before releasing a new stable build this weekend 👍

Thank you for all your information and feedback, any testing and troubleshooting is always greatly appreciated!

[bam7]

I have found a small bug, that is really more of an annoyance. After the app has been running for a while, the video from the RTSP feed seems to rotate a few degrees counter clockwise. I have seen it go as far as 90 degrees off. I have verified that the issue isn't the camera feed itself - the direct video stream is lined up the way it should be. If I finish the print and re-launch the FlashforgeUI app, it corrects itself on restart.

Screenshot attached

[GhostTypes]

That is very strange! 😅

I have done some investigation but don't see anything that could cause this (yet)
Planning to set up my laptop with the camera overnight to see if I can reproduce it

Does toggling the preview also correct it, or only on restart?

[bam7]

Toggling the preview does not fix it, only an app restart does. It's unpredictable when it's going to happen, seems like on long prints when I'm not able to constantly watch it. It's a small issue to deal with really. I'm far happier with using a better quality camera with the RTSP stream as opposed to a small low res USB camera thru the FlashForge interface.

[GhostTypes]

Thank you for the info!

I'm glad to hear it's and improvement to your experience, and I'm hoping to investigate this further soon!

I have a few planned changes to mitigate the issue, but so far unable to locate anything that could be causing this.