Example: Kinesis Video Streams producer SDK GStreamer Plugin - kvssink

This topic describes how to build the Amazon Kinesis Video Streams producer SDK to use as a GStreamer plugin.

GStreamer is a popular media framework used by multiple cameras and video sources to create custom media pipelines by combining modular plugins. The Kinesis Video Streams GStreamer plugin streamlines the integration of your existing GStreamer media pipeline with Kinesis Video Streams. After integrating GStreamer, you can stream video from a webcam or Real Time Streaming Protocol (RTSP) camera to Kinesis Video Streams for real-time or later playback, storage, and further analysis.

The GStreamer plugin automatically manages the transfer of your video stream to Kinesis Video Streams by encapsulating the functionality provided by the Kinesis Video Streams producer SDK in a GStreamer sink element, kvssink. The GStreamer framework provides a standard managed environment for constructing media flow from a device such as a camera or other video source for further processing, rendering, or storage.

The GStreamer pipeline typically consists of the link between a source (video camera) and the sink element (either a player to render the video, or storage for offline retrieval). In this example, you use the Producer SDK element as a sink, or media destination, for your video source (webcam or IP camera). The plugin element that encapsulates the SDK then sends the video stream to Kinesis Video Streams.

This topic describes how to construct a GStreamer media pipeline that's capable of streaming video from a video source, such as a web camera or RTSP stream, typically connected through intermediate encoding stages (using H.264 encoding) to Kinesis Video Streams. When your video stream is available as a Kinesis video stream, you can use the Watch output from cameras using parser library for further processing, playback, storage, or analysis of your video stream.

Download, build, and configure the GStreamer element

The GStreamer Plugin example is included with the Kinesis Video Streams C++ producer SDK. For information about SDK prerequisites and downloading, see Download and configure the C++ producer library code.

You can build the producer SDK GStreamer sink as a dynamic library on macOS, Ubuntu, Raspberry Pi, or Windows. The GStreamer plugin is located in your build directory. To load this plugin, it must be in your GST_PLUGIN_PATH. Run the following command:

export GST_PLUGIN_PATH=`pwd`/build

Run the GStreamer element

To run GStreamer with the Kinesis Video Streams producer SDK element as a sink, use the gst-launch-1.0 command. Use upstream elements that are appropriate for the GStreamer plugin to use. For example, v4l2src for v4l2 devices on Linux systems, or rtspsrc for RTSP devices. Specify kvssink as the sink (final destination of the pipeline) to send video to the Producer SDK.

In addition to providing credentials and providing a region, the kvssinkelement has the following required parameter:

For information about kvssink optional parameters, see GStreamer element parameter reference.

For the latest information about GStreamer plugins and parameters, see GStreamer Plugins. You may also use gst-inspect-1.0 followed by the name of a GStreamer element or plugin to print its information and to verify that it is available on your device:

gst-inspect-1.0 kvssink

If building kvssink failed or GST_PLUGIN_PATH is not properly set, your output will look similar to this:

No such element or plugin 'kvssink'

Example GStreamer launch commands

The following examples demonstrate how to use the kvssink GStreamer plugin to stream video from different types of devices.

Example 1: Stream video from an RTSP camera on Ubuntu

The following command creates a GStreamer pipeline on Ubuntu that streams from a network RTSP camera, using the rtspsrc GStreamer plugin:

gst-launch-1.0 -v rtspsrc location="rtsp://YourCameraRtspUrl" short-header=TRUE ! rtph264depay ! h264parse ! kvssink stream-name="YourStreamName" storage-size=128

Example 2: Encode and stream video from a USB camera on Ubuntu

The following command creates a GStreamer pipeline on Ubuntu that encodes the stream from a USB camera in H.264 format, and streams it to Kinesis Video Streams. This example uses the v4l2src GStreamer plugin.

gst-launch-1.0 v4l2src do-timestamp=TRUE device=/dev/video0 ! videoconvert ! video/x-raw,format=I420,width=640,height=480,framerate=30/1 ! x264enc  bframes=0 key-int-max=45 bitrate=500 ! video/x-h264,stream-format=avc,alignment=au,profile=baseline ! kvssink stream-name="YourStreamName" storage-size=512 access-key="YourAccessKey" secret-key="YourSecretKey" aws-region="YourAWSRegion"

Example 3: Stream pre-encoded video from a USB camera on Ubuntu

The following command creates a GStreamer pipeline on Ubuntu that streams video that the camera has already encoded in H.264 format to Kinesis Video Streams. This example uses the v4l2src GStreamer plugin.

gst-launch-1.0 v4l2src do-timestamp=TRUE device=/dev/video0 ! h264parse ! video/x-h264,stream-format=avc,alignment=au ! kvssink stream-name="plugin" storage-size=512 access-key="YourAccessKey" secret-key="YourSecretKey" aws-region="YourAWSRegion"

Example 4: Stream video from a network camera on macOS

The following command creates a GStreamer pipeline on macOS that streams video to Kinesis Video Streams from a network camera. This example uses the rtspsrc GStreamer plugin.

gst-launch-1.0 rtspsrc location="rtsp://YourCameraRtspUrl" short-header=TRUE ! rtph264depay ! h264parse ! video/x-h264, format=avc,alignment=au ! kvssink stream-name="YourStreamName" storage-size=512  access-key="YourAccessKey" secret-key="YourSecretKey" aws-region="YourAWSRegion"

Example 5: Stream video from a network camera on Windows

The following command creates a GStreamer pipeline on Windows that streams video to Kinesis Video Streams from a network camera. This example uses the rtspsrc GStreamer plugin.

gst-launch-1.0 rtspsrc location="rtsp://YourCameraRtspUrl" short-header=TRUE ! rtph264depay ! video/x-h264, format=avc,alignment=au ! kvssink stream-name="YourStreamName" storage-size=512  access-key="YourAccessKey" secret-key="YourSecretKey" aws-region="YourAWSRegion"

Example 6: Stream video from a camera on Raspberry Pi

The following command creates a GStreamer pipeline on Raspberry Pi that streams video to Kinesis Video Streams. This example uses the v4l2src GStreamer plugin.

gst-launch-1.0 v4l2src do-timestamp=TRUE device=/dev/video0 ! videoconvert ! video/x-raw,format=I420,width=640,height=480,framerate=30/1 ! omxh264enc control-rate=1 target-bitrate=5120000 periodicity-idr=45 inline-header=FALSE ! h264parse ! video/x-h264,stream-format=avc,alignment=au,width=640,height=480,framerate=30/1,profile=baseline ! kvssink stream-name="YourStreamName" access-key="YourAccessKey" secret-key="YourSecretKey" aws-region="YourAWSRegion"

Example 7: Stream both audio and video in Raspberry Pi and Ubuntu

See how to run the gst-launch-1.0 command to start streaming both audio and video in Raspberry-PI and Ubuntu.

Example 8: Stream both audio and video from device sources in macOS

See how to run the gst-launch-1.0 command to start streaming both audio and video in MacOS.

Example 9: Upload MKV file that contains both audio and video

See how to run the gst-launch-1.0 command to upload MKV file that contains both audio and video. You will need an MKV test file with h.264 and AAC encoded media.

Run the GStreamer element in a Docker container

Docker is a platform for developing, deploying, and running applications using containers. Using Docker to create the GStreamer pipeline standardizes the operating environment for Kinesis Video Streams, which streamlines building and using the application.

To install and configure Docker, see the following:

After installing Docker, you can download the Kinesis Video Streams C++ Producer SDK (and GStreamer plugin) from the Amazon Elastic Container Registry using one of the below provided docker pull commands.

To run GStreamer with the Kinesis Video Streams producer SDK element as a sink in a Docker container, do the following:

Authenticate your Docker client

Authenticate your Docker client to the Amazon ECR registry that you intend to pull your image from. You must get authentication tokens for each registry used. Tokens are valid for 12 hours. For more information, see Registry Authentication in the Amazon Elastic Container Registry User Guide.

sudo aws ecr get-login-password --region us-west-2 | docker login -u AWS --password-stdin https://546150905175.dkr.ecr.us-west-2.amazonaws.com

Download the Docker image for Ubuntu, macOS, Windows, or Raspberry Pi

Download the Docker image to your Docker environment using one the following commands, depending on your operating system:

Download the Docker image for Ubuntu

sudo docker pull 546150905175.dkr.ecr.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/kinesis-video-producer-sdk-cpp-amazon-linux:latest

Download the Docker image for macOS

docker pull 546150905175.dkr.ecr.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/kinesis-video-producer-sdk-cpp-amazon-linux:latest

Download the Docker image for Windows

docker pull 546150905175.dkr.ecr.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/kinesis-video-producer-sdk-cpp-amazon-windows:latest

Download the Docker image for Raspberry Pi

sudo docker pull 546150905175.dkr.ecr.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/kinesis-video-producer-sdk-cpp-raspberry-pi:latest

To verify that the image was successfully added, use the following command:

docker images

Run the Docker image

Use one of the following commands to run the Docker image, depending on your operating system:

Run the Docker image on Ubuntu

sudo docker run -it --network="host" --device=/dev/video0 546150905175.dkr.ecr.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/kinesis-video-producer-sdk-cpp-amazon-linux /bin/bash

Run the Docker image on macOS

sudo docker run -it --network="host" 546150905175.dkr.ecr.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/kinesis-video-producer-sdk-cpp-amazon-linux /bin/bash

Run the Docker image on Windows

docker run -it 546150905175.dkr.ecr.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/kinesis-video-producer-sdk-cpp-windows AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY RTSP_URL STREAM_NAME

Run the Docker image on Raspberry Pi

sudo docker run -it --device=/dev/video0 --device=/dev/vchiq -v /opt/vc:/opt/vc 546150905175.dkr.ecr.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/kinesis-video-producer-sdk-cpp-raspberry-pi /bin/bash

Docker launches the container and presents you with a command prompt for using commands within the container.

In the container, set the environment variables using the following command:

export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=/opt/awssdk/amazon-kinesis-video-streams-producer-sdk-cpp/kinesis-video-native-build/downloads/local/lib:$LD_LIBRARY_PATH
export PATH=/opt/awssdk/amazon-kinesis-video-streams-producer-sdk-cpp/kinesis-video-native-build/downloads/local/bin:$PATH
export GST_PLUGIN_PATH=/opt/awssdk/amazon-kinesis-video-streams-producer-sdk-cpp/kinesis-video-native-build/downloads/local/lib:$GST_PLUGIN_PATH

Start streaming to kvssink using the gst-launch-1.0 to run a pipeline appropriate for your device and video source. For example pipelines, see Example GStreamer launch commands.