Free tools for live low latency video streaming to iPAD
Hello Everyone,
I am running a video security business/non-profit and over last 2 years I had more and more complaints from users unable to monitor their security cameras
on their iPads / iPhones. There is plenty of software out there that allows streaming video to iPad, but you get very long delays from real time - from 15 to 40 seconds, which sometimes invalidates the whole idea of security video monitoring: by the time you saw the event, the thief is gone!
So I have done some research on low latency options and want to share it with the community and get your input - do you know of any low-latency and free streaming software for iPad?
Here are two programs that I found (both use Apple HTTP Live Streaming protocol, and you need to use HTML5 <video> in Safari browser):
VideoLan (VLC). After long digging I have found a tutorial of how to stream from VLC to iPADs:
wiki.videolan.org/Documentation:Streaming_HowTo/Streaming_for_the_iPhone
Not too simple to configure; eventually this gives me about 5-7 seconds latency, but playback is choppy and jerky.
Unreal Media Server. Just found it couple of weeks ago. Download it from here
umediaserver.net/umediaserver/download.html
Create a live broadcast that points to your camera; right-click on this live broadcast and select "Start HLS Streaming". Specify lowest values
for chunk duration and number of chunks. After I have done that, I got 2-4 seconds latency on my iPAD; nice and smooth video.
In both cases I measured the latency over the Internet ( for LAN, I guess, it will be lower ).
Any input, ideas, how can I go lower than 2 seconds latency, streaming live to iPAD?
