The Real Time Streaming Protocol (RTSP) is a network control protocol

Communications protocol

A communications protocol is a system of digital message formats and rules for exchanging those messages in or between computing systems and in telecommunications...

 designed for use in entertainment and communications systems to control streaming media

Streaming media

Streaming media is multimedia that is constantly received by and presented to an end-user while being delivered by a streaming provider.The term "presented" is used in this article in a general sense that includes audio or video playback. The name refers to the delivery method of the medium rather...

 server

Web server

Web server can refer to either the hardware or the software that helps to deliver content that can be accessed through the Internet....

s. The protocol is used for establishing and controlling media sessions between end points. Clients of media servers issue VCR-like commands, such as play and pause, to facilitate real-time control of playback of media files from the server.

The transmission of streaming data itself is not a task of the RTSP protocol. Most RTSP servers use the Real-time Transport Protocol

Real-time Transport Protocol

The Real-time Transport Protocol defines a standardized packet format for delivering audio and video over IP networks. RTP is used extensively in communication and entertainment systems that involve streaming media, such as telephony, video teleconference applications, television services and...

 (RTP) for media stream delivery, however some vendors implement proprietary transport protocols. The RTSP server from RealNetworks

RealNetworks

RealNetworks, Inc. is a provider of Internet media delivery software and services based in Downtown Seattle, Washington, United States. The company is the creator of RealAudio, a compressed audio format; RealVideo, a compressed video format; RealPlayer, a media player; RealDownloader, a download...

, for example, also features RealNetworks

RealNetworks

RealNetworks, Inc. is a provider of Internet media delivery software and services based in Downtown Seattle, Washington, United States. The company is the creator of RealAudio, a compressed audio format; RealVideo, a compressed video format; RealPlayer, a media player; RealDownloader, a download...

' proprietary RDT stream transport

RDT stream transport

Real Data Transport is a proprietary transport protocol for the actual audio/video data, developed by RealNetworks in the 1990s.Commonly used in companion with a control protocol for streaming media like the IETF's based RTSP protocol....

.

RTSP was developed by the Multiparty Multimedia Session Control Working Group (MMUSIC WG) of the Internet Engineering Task Force

Internet Engineering Task Force

The Internet Engineering Task Force develops and promotes Internet standards, cooperating closely with the W3C and ISO/IEC standards bodies and dealing in particular with standards of the TCP/IP and Internet protocol suite...

 (IETF) and published as RFC 2326 in 1998.

Protocol directives

While similar in some ways to HTTP, RTSP defines control sequences useful in controlling multimedia playback. While HTTP is stateless

Stateless server

In computing, a stateless protocol is a communications protocol that treats each request as an independent transaction that is unrelated to any previous request so that the communication consists of independent pairs of requests and responses...

, RTSP has state; an identifier is used when needed to track concurrent sessions. Like HTTP, RTSP uses TCP to maintain an end-to-end connection and, while most RTSP control messages are sent by the client to the server, some commands travel in the other direction (i.e. from server to client).

Presented here are the basic RTSP requests. Some typical HTTP requests, like the OPTIONS request, are also available. The default transport layer port number is 554.

OPTIONS

An OPTIONS request returns the request types the server will accept.

DESCRIBE

A DESCRIBE request includes an RTSP URL

Uniform Resource Locator

In computing, a uniform resource locator or universal resource locator is a specific character string that constitutes a reference to an Internet resource....

 (rtsp://...), and the type of reply data that can be handled. The default port for the RTSP protocol is 554 for both UDP

User Datagram Protocol

The User Datagram Protocol is one of the core members of the Internet Protocol Suite, the set of network protocols used for the Internet. With UDP, computer applications can send messages, in this case referred to as datagrams, to other hosts on an Internet Protocol network without requiring...

 (deprecated and very rarely used) and TCP

Transmission Control Protocol

The Transmission Control Protocol is one of the core protocols of the Internet Protocol Suite. TCP is one of the two original components of the suite, complementing the Internet Protocol , and therefore the entire suite is commonly referred to as TCP/IP...

 transports. This reply includes the presentation description, typically in Session Description Protocol

Session Description Protocol

The Session Description Protocol is a format for describing streaming media initialization parameters. The IETF published the original specification as an IETF Proposed Standard in April 1998, and subsequently published a revised specification as an IETF Proposed Standard as RFC 4566 in July...

 (SDP) format. Among other things, the presentation description lists the media streams controlled with the aggregate URL. In the typical case, there is one media stream each for audio and video.

SETUP

A SETUP request specifies how a single media stream must be transported. This must be done before a PLAY request is sent. The request contains the media stream URL and a transport specifier. This specifier typically includes a local port for receiving RTP

Real-time Transport Protocol

The Real-time Transport Protocol defines a standardized packet format for delivering audio and video over IP networks. RTP is used extensively in communication and entertainment systems that involve streaming media, such as telephony, video teleconference applications, television services and...

 data (audio or video), and another for RTCP data (meta information). The server reply usually confirms the chosen parameters, and fills in the missing parts, such as the server's chosen ports. Each media stream must be configured using SETUP before an aggregate play request may be sent.

PLAY

A PLAY request will cause one or all media streams to be played. Play requests can be stacked by sending multiple PLAY requests. The URL may be the aggregate URL (to play all media streams), or a single media stream URL (to play only that stream). A range can be specified. If no range is specified, the stream is played from the beginning and plays to the end, or, if the stream is paused, it is resumed at the point it was paused.

PAUSE

A PAUSE request temporarily halts one or all media streams, so it can later be resumed with a PLAY request. The request contains an aggregate or media stream URL. A range parameter on a PAUSE request specifies when to pause. When the range parameter is omitted, the pause occurs immediately and indefinitely.

RECORD

The RECORD request can be used to send a stream to the server for storage.

TEARDOWN

A TEARDOWN request is used to terminate the session. It stops all media streams and frees all session related data on the server.

Server

• QuickTime Streaming Server
  QuickTime Streaming Server
  QuickTime Streaming Server is a server or service daemon that was built into Apple's Mac OS X Server until OS X Server 10.7. It delivers video and audio on request to users over a computer network, including the Internet. Its primary GUI configuration tool is QTSS Publisher and its web-based...
  
  : Apple's closed-source streaming server that ships with Mac OS X Server.
• Darwin Streaming Server
  Darwin Streaming Server
  Darwin Streaming Server , is the first open sourced RTP/RTSP streaming server. It was released March 16, 1999 and is a fully featured RTSP/RTP media streaming server capable of streaming a variety of media types including H.264/MPEG-4 AVC, MPEG-4 Part 2 and 3GP.Developed by Apple, it is the open...
  
  : Open-sourced version of QuickTime Streaming Server maintained by Apple.
• pvServer
  Pvserver
  pvServer is a 3GPP/2 standards compliant multimedia server that provides streaming and broadcast services to mobile devices. pvServer is developed by PacketVideo Network Solutions , a wholly owned company of Alcatel-Lucent...
  
  : Formerly called PacketVideo Streaming Server, this is Alcatel-Lucent's streaming server product.
• Helix Universal Server
  Helix Universal Server
  The Helix Universal Streaming Server is developed by RealNetworks and originates from the very first streaming media server originally developed by Progressive Networks in 1994...
  
  : RealNetworks
  RealNetworks
  RealNetworks, Inc. is a provider of Internet media delivery software and services based in Downtown Seattle, Washington, United States. The company is the creator of RealAudio, a compressed audio format; RealVideo, a compressed video format; RealPlayer, a media player; RealDownloader, a download...
  
   commercial streaming server for RTSP, RTMP, iPhone OS, Silverlight and HTTP streaming media clients
• Helix DNA Server
  Helix (project)
  Helix DNA is a project to produce software that can play audio and video media in various formats, aid in producing such media, and serve them over a network. It is intended as a largely free and open source digital media framework that runs on numerous operating systems and processors and was...
  
  : RealNetworks
  RealNetworks
  RealNetworks, Inc. is a provider of Internet media delivery software and services based in Downtown Seattle, Washington, United States. The company is the creator of RealAudio, a compressed audio format; RealVideo, a compressed video format; RealPlayer, a media player; RealDownloader, a download...
  
  ' streaming server. Comes in both open-source and proprietary flavors.
• LIVE555
  LIVE555
  LIVE555 is an open source C++ library for multimedia streaming. It supports open standards such as RTP/RTCP, RTSP, SIP for streaming, and can also manage video and audio formats such as MPEG, H.263+ JPEG video. It is designed in such a way that it can be easily extended to support more formats.It...
  
  : Open source C++
  C++
  C++ is a statically typed, free-form, multi-paradigm, compiled, general-purpose programming language. It is regarded as an intermediate-level language, as it comprises a combination of both high-level and low-level language features. It was developed by Bjarne Stroustrup starting in 1979 at Bell...
  
   server and client libraries used in well known clients like VLC
  VLC media player
  VLC media player is a free and open source media player and multimedia framework written by the VideoLAN project.VLC is a portable multimedia player, encoder, and streamer supporting many audio and video codecs and file formats as well as DVDs, VCDs, and various streaming protocols. It is able to...
  
   and mplayer
  MPlayer
  MPlayer is a free and open source media player. The program is available for all major operating systems, including Linux and other Unix-like systems, Microsoft Windows and Mac OS X. Versions for OS/2, Syllable, AmigaOS and MorphOS are also available. The Windows version works, with some minor...
  
  .
• Feng
  Feng (program)
  Feng is a multimedia streaming server compliant with IETF standards for real-time streaming of multimedia content over IP networks. Feng implements Real Time Streaming Protocol and Real-time Transport Protocol / RTP Control Protocol...
  
  : Lean and mean streaming server with focus with rfc compliance.
• VideoLAN
  VideoLAN
  VideoLAN is a project that develops software for playing video and other media formats across a local area network . It originally developed two programs for media streaming, VideoLAN Client and VideoLAN Server , but most of the features of VLS have been incorporated into VLC, with the result...
  
  : Open source media player and streaming server.
• Windows Media Services
  Windows Media Services
  Windows Media Services is a streaming media server from Microsoft that allows an administrator to generate streaming media . Only Windows Media, JPEG, and MP3 formats are supported...
  
  : Microsoft's streaming server included with Windows Server
  Windows Server
  Windows Server is a brand name for a group of server operating systems released by Microsoft Corporation. All are part of Microsoft Servers.- Members :This brand includes the following software:* Windows 2000 Server* Windows Server 2003...
  
  .
• VX30: Streaming video server and embedded JAVA client from Maui X-Stream.
• Xenon Streaming Server: Mobile streaming server from Vidiator
  Vidiator
  Vidiator provides video and audio streaming, encoding and transcoding, for the delivery of 3G multimedia content to the mobile devices.Vidiator's customer network reaches over 60 million 3G subscribers on four continents....
  
   Technology (US) Inc.
• RtpRtspStack: Streaming server which is designed for low footprint and high performance applications.
• Gstreamer
  GStreamer
  GStreamer is a pipeline-based multimedia framework written in the C programming language with the type system based on GObject.GStreamer allows a programmer to create a variety of media-handling components, including simple audio playback, audio and video playback, recording, streaming and editing...
  
   based RTSP Server and client.
• FFmpeg
  FFmpeg
  FFmpeg is a free software project that produces libraries and programs for handling multimedia data. The most notable parts of FFmpeg are libavcodec, an audio/video codec library used by several other projects, libavformat, an audio/video container mux and demux library, and the ffmpeg command line...
  
  : includes ffserver a GPL or LGPL RTSP streaming server.
• Erlyvideo has RTSP client and can restream video to other protocols.
• ViaMotion : integrated RTSP server for Video On Demand by Anevia

Client

• cURL
  CURL
  cURL is a computer software project providing a library and command-line tool for transferring data using various protocols. The cURL project produces two products, libcurl and cURL...
  
   (beginning with version 7.20.0—9 February 2010)
• FFmpeg
  FFmpeg
  FFmpeg is a free software project that produces libraries and programs for handling multimedia data. The most notable parts of FFmpeg are libavcodec, an audio/video codec library used by several other projects, libavformat, an audio/video container mux and demux library, and the ffmpeg command line...
  
   (undocumented)
  1. Live playback: ffplay rtsp://some-server.youtube.com/some-media.3gp
  2. Saving live broadcast to a file: ffmpeg -i rtsp://some-server.youtube.com/some-media.3gp -acodec copy -vcodec copy filename.3gp
• GStreamer
  GStreamer
  GStreamer is a pipeline-based multimedia framework written in the C programming language with the type system based on GObject.GStreamer allows a programmer to create a variety of media-handling components, including simple audio playback, audio and video playback, recording, streaming and editing...
  
  
• Media Player Classic
  Media Player Classic
  Media Player Classic is a compact media player for 32-bit and 64-bit Microsoft Windows. The application mimics the look and feel of the old, lightweight Windows Media Player 6.4 but integrates most options and features found in modern media players...
  
  
• MPlayer
  MPlayer
  MPlayer is a free and open source media player. The program is available for all major operating systems, including Linux and other Unix-like systems, Microsoft Windows and Mac OS X. Versions for OS/2, Syllable, AmigaOS and MorphOS are also available. The Windows version works, with some minor...
  
  
• MythTV
  MythTV
  MythTV is a free and open source home entertainment application with a simplified "10-foot user interface" design for the living-room TV, and turns a computer with the necessary hardware into a network streaming digital video recorder, a digital multimedia home entertainment system, or home theater...
  
   via Freebox
• QuickTime
  QuickTime
  QuickTime is an extensible proprietary multimedia framework developed by Apple Inc., capable of handling various formats of digital video, picture, sound, panoramic images, and interactivity. The classic version of QuickTime is available for Windows XP and later, as well as Mac OS X Leopard and...
  
  
• RealPlayer
  RealPlayer
  RealPlayer is a cross-platform media player by RealNetworks that plays a number of multimedia formats including MP3, MPEG-4, QuickTime, Windows Media, and multiple versions of proprietary RealAudio and RealVideo formats.-History:...
  
  
• Skype
  Skype
  Skype is a software application that allows users to make voice and video calls and chat over the Internet. Calls to other users within the Skype service are free, while calls to both traditional landline telephones and mobile phones can be made for a fee using a debit-based user account system...
  
  
• Spotify
  Spotify
  Spotify is a Swedish-founded, UK-headquartered DRM-based music streaming service offering streaming of selected music from a range of major and independent record labels, including Sony, EMI, Warner Music Group, and Universal. Launched in October 2008 by Swedish startup Spotify AB, the service had...
  
  
• VLC media player
  VLC media player
  VLC media player is a free and open source media player and multimedia framework written by the VideoLAN project.VLC is a portable multimedia player, encoder, and streamer supporting many audio and video codecs and file formats as well as DVDs, VCDs, and various streaming protocols. It is able to...
  
  
• Winamp
  Winamp
  Winamp is a media player for Windows-based PCs and Android devices, written by Nullsoft, now a subsidiary of AOL. It is proprietary freeware/shareware, multi-format, extensible with plug-ins and skins, and is noted for its graphical sound visualization, playlist, and media library features.Winamp...
  
  
• Windows Media Player
  Windows Media Player
  Windows Media Player is a media player and media library application developed by Microsoft that is used for playing audio, video and viewing images on personal computers running the Microsoft Windows operating system, as well as on Pocket PC and Windows Mobile-based devices...
  
  
• xine
  Xine
  xine is a multimedia playback engine for Unix-like operating systems released under the GNU General Public License. xine is built around a shared library that supports different frontend player applications. Another important feature of xine is the ability to manually correct the synchronization...
  
  
• JetAudio
  JetAudio
  jetAudio is a multimedia player software that offers a playback option and multimedia file editor and burning capabilities. There are two different versions: Basic and Plus VX. The Plus VX version has additional bonus packs and unlocked video/audio conversion...
  
  

External links

, a central information repository about RTSP.

• Tunnelling RTSP and RTP through HTTP, A standard solution to help RTSP work through firewalls and web proxies