Playing and Processing External RTSP Streams or Video Files on AXIS F9111-R Mk II

[tomohiro20251106]

Hello,
I am developing an ACAP application on an AXIS F9111-R Mk II camera. The goals are:

・Capture and process an external RTSP stream directly on the camera
・Alternatively, load and process external MP4 video files

Currently, there does not seem to be a way to directly decode external RTSP streams or MP4 files on AXIS OS,
and the ACAP SDK examples do not include any video decoding samples.

My questions are:

①Is there a supported way to fetch and decode external streams or video files directly on AXIS ACAP?
②If not currently possible, could future ACAP updates consider providing APIs for external stream/video decoding?

Camera model: AXIS F9111-R Mk II

Any advice or best practices would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you very much.

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[vivekatoffice]

Hi @tomohiro20251106 ,
AXIS F9111-R Mk II Main Unit do have the latest ARTPEC8 SoC

You can explore the using-opencv example using RTSP URL:

int main(void) {
    syslog(LOG_INFO, "Running OpenCV example with RTSP as video source");

    // Replace with your RTSP stream URL
    // Format: rtsp://[username]:[password]@[ip_address]:[port]/[stream_path]
    std::string rtsp_url = "rtsp://username:[email protected]:554/stream1";

    // Open the RTSP stream
    VideoCapture cap(rtsp_url, CAP_FFMPEG);
    
    if (!cap.isOpened()) {
        syslog(LOG_ERR, "Error: Cannot open RTSP stream");
        return EXIT_FAILURE;
    }

Other options:

1. FFmpeg : 486
2. Gstreamer : 986

I am not sure about the use case you are looking at, but I have seen various people prefer external AI boxes to process the external RTSP streams.

[tomohiro20251106]

Hi Vivek Kumar,

Thank you for your reply.

I referred to the following example when coding:
https://github.com/AxisCommunications/acap-native-sdk-examples/tree/main/using-opencv

Here is my code:

#include <opencv2/opencv.hpp>
#include <iostream>
#include <thread>
#include <chrono>

int main()
{
    std::cout << "[INFO] Video Stream Client start" << std::endl;

    const std::string streamUrl = "rtsp://172.20.23.220:8554/test";

    cv::VideoCapture cap;
    int retryCount = 0;

    while (retryCount < 10) { // maximum 10 retries
        cap.open(streamUrl, cv::CAP_FFMPEG);
        if (cap.isOpened()) break;

        std::cerr << "[WARNING] Failed to open stream, retrying..." << std::endl;
        std::this_thread::sleep_for(std::chrono::seconds(5));
        retryCount++;
    }

    if (!cap.isOpened()) {
        std::cerr << "[ERROR] Could not open stream after retries, exiting." << std::endl;
        return 1;
    }

    return 0;
}

However, even after installing the app on the camera, it results in an error:
2025-11-25T16:41:35.926+09:00 axis-XXXXXXXXX [ INFO ] video_stream[42521]: [INFO] Video Stream Client start
2025-11-25T16:41:35.927+09:00 axis-XXXXXXXXX [ INFO ] video_stream[42521]: [WARNING] Failed to open stream, retrying...
...
2025-11-25T16:42:25.928+09:00 axis-XXXXXXXXX [ INFO ] video_stream[42521]: [ERROR] Could not open stream after retries, exiting.

Do you have any suggestions on why it cannot open the RTSP stream from the camera app?

I want to test a vehicle-detection application that I developed using external streams or external video files. Are “external AI boxes” another product from your company?

[vivekatoffice]

Hi @tomohiro20251106 ,
Try checking if the camera can access IP: 172.20.23.220 and Port: 8554

You may need to set the correct settings "IP/camera/index.html#/system/network" for network access.

Unfortunately, I don't have access to the physical AXIS F9111-R Mk II Main Unit to try it. But I will explore your OpenCV code with another camera model 😄. May be a good idea to share your test ACAP sample code here.

Alternatives to test the RTSP stream using SSH login to the Axis camera device:

Curl:

axis-xxxxxx:~$ curl -v --digest -u  VLTuser:xxxxxx rtsp://195.60.68.14:31088/axis-media/medi
a.amp
*   Trying 195.60.68.14:31088...
* Established connection to 195.60.68.14 (195.60.68.14 port 31088) from 10.176.13.53 port 41198
* Server auth using Digest with user 'VLTuser'
> OPTIONS * RTSP/1.0
> CSeq: 1
> User-Agent: curl/8.16.0
>
* Request completely sent off
< RTSP/1.0 200 OK
< CSeq: 1
< Public: OPTIONS, DESCRIBE, ANNOUNCE, GET_PARAMETER, PAUSE, PLAY, RECORD, SETUP, SET_PARAMETER, TEARDOWN
< Server: GStreamer RTSP server
< Date: Tue, 25 Nov 2025 09:39:27 GMT
<
* Connection #0 to host 195.60.68.14:31088 left intact
axis-xxxxxx:~$

GStreamer

acap-opencv_app@axis-xxxxxx:/usr/local/packages/opencv_app/lib$ gst-launch-1.0 \
>  rtspsrc \
>    user-id=VLTuser \
>    user-pw=xxxxxx\
>    location="rtsp://195.60.68.14:31088/axis-media/media.amp?streamprofile=vivekstream" \
>    protocols=tcp \
>    latency=200 ! fakesink
Setting pipeline to PAUSED ...
Pipeline is live and does not need PREROLL ...
Progress: (open) Opening Stream
Pipeline is PREROLLED ...
Prerolled, waiting for progress to finish...
Progress: (connect) Connecting to rtsp://195.60.68.14:31088/axis-media/media.amp?streamprofile=vivekstream
Progress: (open) Retrieving server options
Progress: (open) Retrieving media info
Progress: (request) SETUP stream 0
Progress: (open) Opened Stream
Setting pipeline to PLAYING ...
New clock: GstSystemClock
Progress: (request) Sending PLAY request
Progress: (request) Sending PLAY request
Progress: (request) Sent PLAY request
Redistribute latency...
^Chandling interrupt.
Interrupt: Stopping pipeline ...
Execution ended after 0:00:11.023249138
Setting pipeline to NULL ...
Freeing pipeline ...
acap-opencv_app@axis-xxxxxx:/usr/local/packages/opencv_app/lib$

[tomohiro20251106]

Hi Vivek Kumar,

Thank you for your reply.

I am planning to try coding by explicitly specifying the GStreamer pipeline, as you suggested. I will get back to you once I have some results.

[tomohiro20251106]

Hi Vivek Kumar,

Sorry for the late reply.

I ended up implementing it with FFmpeg.
I was able to open the RTSP stream, but I’m getting a lot of errors during decoding.
I tried adjusting parameters on both the client side (the AXIS camera) and the server side, but the errors didn’t decrease much.

With this camera model, when decoding 30 FPS / 640×360 / H.264 and grabbing each frame as an image, is it normal to only retrieve about 2 frames per second?
Can this be improved?

Error messages:

2025-12-01T10:34:17.756+09:00 axis-XXXXXXXXX [ INFO ] video_stream[12387]: Opening RTSP: rtsp://172.20.23.220:8554/test
2025-12-01T10:34:17.812+09:00 axis-XXXXXXXXX [ INFO ] video_stream[12387]:[h264 @ 0x559492d5d0] negative number of zero coeffs at 45 1
…
…
2025-12-01T10:34:42.017+09:00 axis-XXXXXXXXX [ INFO ] video_stream[12387]:[h264 @ 0x5594940330] No start code is found.
2025-12-01T10:34:42.017+09:00 axis-XXXXXXXXX [ INFO ] video_stream[12387]:[h264 @ 0x5594940330] Error splitting the input into NAL units.
2025-12-01T10:34:42.017+09:00 axis-XXXXXXXXX [ INFO ] video_stream[12387]:[h264 @ 0x5594940330] Invalid level prefix
2025-12-01T10:34:42.017+09:00 axis-XXXXXXXXX [ INFO ] video_stream[12387]:[h264 @ 0x5594940330] error while decoding MB 72 12

[vivekatoffice]

Hi @tomohiro20251106 ,
You can use the top command in SSH mode to observe the load on AXIS F9111-R Mk II Main Unit
(AXIS OS version 12.7.53): 🤔

Developer Mode

[Cacsjep]

Hi Vivek Kumar,

Sorry for the late reply.

I ended up implementing it with FFmpeg. I was able to open the RTSP stream, but I’m getting a lot of errors during decoding. I tried adjusting parameters on both the client side (the AXIS camera) and the server side, but the errors didn’t decrease much.

With this camera model, when decoding 30 FPS / 640×360 / H.264 and grabbing each frame as an image, is it normal to only retrieve about 2 frames per second? Can this be improved?

Error messages:

2025-12-01T10:34:17.756+09:00 axis-XXXXXXXXX [ INFO ] video_stream[12387]: Opening RTSP: rtsp://172.20.23.220:8554/test 2025-12-01T10:34:17.812+09:00 axis-XXXXXXXXX [ INFO ] video_stream[12387]:[h264 @ 0x559492d5d0] negative number of zero coeffs at 45 1 … … 2025-12-01T10:34:42.017+09:00 axis-XXXXXXXXX [ INFO ] video_stream[12387]:[h264 @ 0x5594940330] No start code is found. 2025-12-01T10:34:42.017+09:00 axis-XXXXXXXXX [ INFO ] video_stream[12387]:[h264 @ 0x5594940330] Error splitting the input into NAL units. 2025-12-01T10:34:42.017+09:00 axis-XXXXXXXXX [ INFO ] video_stream[12387]:[h264 @ 0x5594940330] Invalid level prefix 2025-12-01T10:34:42.017+09:00 axis-XXXXXXXXX [ INFO ] video_stream[12387]:[h264 @ 0x5594940330] error while decoding MB 72 12

this errors look like nal unit erros, could either be that packages does not arrive smotly or even camera cant handle that, did you was able to use and hw decoder, I would assume not. Decoding a h264 stream on a CPU is kinda heavy. And I would assume that this kills the camera CPU. you can easy test this by reduce fps and reso. I think you need to overthink your solution because cpu h264 decoding is may a thing that shoot you in the foot =)