Ffmpeg capture RTSP stream to hourly file

ffmpegrtsp

I'm using ffmpeg to capture a RTSP stream to a file using the following command:

ffmpeg -i rtsp://[IP Address]:[port]/[URL] -vcodec copy -r 60 -t 2600 -y /[outputfile].mp4

This works ok and captures 60 mins fine. What I'd like to be able to do is:

Output hourly files, e.g. capture1.mp4 capture2.mp4 etc.
Put the current timestamp as the overlay in the current file (currently
VLC says something like LIVE555...). I'd like to change this to
source + timestamp.
Delete old mp4 files over x days old, e.g. keep files for 1 or 2 days

Is this possible in ffmpeg or do i need to put a script wrapper around the ffmpeg command? If so, any examples of those I can re-use please?
This is on Ubuntu linux using latest ffmpeg package and using apt-get install ffmpeg to install so it's built from source.

Thanks

Best Answer

output hourly video files

You can start ffmpeg over crontab every hour Ubuntu Crontab

0 * * * * ffmpeg -i rtsp://[IP Address]:[port]/[URL] -vcodec copy -r 60 -t 3540 -y $(date +\%Y\%m\%d\%H).mp4

add a text overlay

You can find more Information here ->https://stackoverflow.com/questions/17623676/text-on-video-ffmpeg

cleanup old files

Remove old videos -> Delete files older than 10 days using shell script in Unix

Related Solutions

Rotating videos with FFmpeg

Rotate 90 clockwise:

ffmpeg -i in.mov -vf "transpose=1" out.mov

For the transpose parameter you can pass:

0 = 90CounterCLockwise and Vertical Flip (default)
1 = 90Clockwise
2 = 90CounterClockwise
3 = 90Clockwise and Vertical Flip

Use -vf "transpose=2,transpose=2" for 180 degrees.

Make sure you use a recent ffmpeg version from here (a static build will work fine).

Note that this will re-encode the audio and video parts. You can usually copy the audio without touching it, by using -c:a copy. To change the video quality, set the bitrate (for example with -b:v 1M) or have a look at the H.264 encoding guide if you want VBR options.

A solution is also to use this convenience script.

How to concatenate two MP4 files using FFmpeg

FFmpeg has three concatenation methods:

1. concat video filter

Use this method if your inputs do not have the same parameters (width, height, etc), or are not the same formats/codecs, or if you want to perform any filtering.

Note that this method performs a re-encode of all inputs. If you want to avoid the re-encode, you could re-encode just the inputs that don't match so they share the same codec and other parameters, then use the concat demuxer to avoid re-encoding everything.

ffmpeg -i opening.mkv -i episode.mkv -i ending.mkv \
-filter_complex "[0:v] [0:a] [1:v] [1:a] [2:v] [2:a] \
concat=n=3:v=1:a=1 [v] [a]" \
-map "[v]" -map "[a]" output.mkv

2. concat demuxer

Use this method when you want to avoid a re-encode and your format does not support file-level concatenation (most files used by general users do not support file-level concatenation).

$ cat mylist.txt
file '/path/to/file1'
file '/path/to/file2'
file '/path/to/file3'
    
$ ffmpeg -f concat -safe 0 -i mylist.txt -c copy output.mp4

For Windows:

(echo file 'first file.mp4' & echo file 'second file.mp4' )>list.txt
ffmpeg -safe 0 -f concat -i list.txt -c copy output.mp4

3. concat protocol

Use this method with formats that support file-level concatenation (MPEG-1, MPEG-2 PS, DV). Do not use with MP4.

ffmpeg -i "concat:input1|input2" -codec copy output.mkv

This method does not work for many formats, including MP4, due to the nature of these formats and the simplistic concatenation performed by this method.

If in doubt about which method to use, try the concat demuxer.