RTSP Streaming on Rockchip with live555 + MPP

What this walkthrough does

The original tutorial builds a small RTSP server on the TB-RK3399ProD board that captures frames from a USB camera, hardware-encodes them to H.264 with Rockchip MPP, and serves the stream over RTSP so a remote player (VLC) can display it. The key idea — and the part worth stealing — is that the video encode runs on the Rockchip hardware encoder through MPP, not on the CPU. The thread notes a 3-hour soak test ran clean on the demo; for commercial products you should still do your own optimization. You can also swap live555 for another RTSP framework and keep the same MPP encode path.

1. Install the environment

The tutorial was verified on Fedora 28 (firmware v1.5) and also on Debian 10. Install the live555, FFmpeg, and Rockchip MPP/RGA development packages.

1.1 Fedora 28

sudo dnf install https://download1.rpmfusion.org/free/fedora/rpmfusion-free-release-$(rpm -E %fedora).noarch.rpm
sudo dnf install live555-devel
sudo dnf install ffmpeg-devel
sudo dnf install librockchip_mpp-devel
sudo dnf install librockchip_rga-devel

1.2 Debian 10

First refresh the package indexes (the first update pulls in the Toybrick apt source):

# 1. refresh sources
sudo apt update --fix-missing
# 2. upgrade packages
#    NOTE: during the upgrade you will be asked whether to keep
#    /etc/apt/sources.list.d/toybrick.list — answer "Y"
sudo apt -y upgrade
# 3. refresh sources again
sudo apt update

For later updates, a plain sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade is enough. Then install the dependencies:

sudo apt install liblivemedia-dev
sudo apt install livemedia-utils
sudo apt install ffmpeg
sudo apt install libavcodec-dev
sudo apt install libswscale-dev
sudo apt install libavformat-dev
sudo apt install vlc
sudo apt install rockchip-mpp-dev
sudo apt install rockchip-rga-dev

2. Get the demo source and build

Download and extract the attachment for your distro (Fedora or Debian), then build inside the IPCamera/ directory:

cd IPCamera/
make clean
make
./RTSPServer

On startup the server prints the RTSP URL — the IP is whatever the board got, so use the printed value. In the original run it was:

rtsp://172.16.9.3:8554/h264ESVideoTest

Keep this URL; the player uses it in the next step.

3. Play the stream with VLC

The tutorial installs VLC right on the board, but you can also play from a PC on the same network:

sudo dnf install vlc
vlc

In VLC: Media → Open Network Stream → paste rtsp://172.16.9.3:8554/h264ESVideoTest → Play.

4. How the code works (two key files)

4.1 V4L2.cpp — grab a frame, convert to NV12

V4L2FramedSource::doGetNextFrame() pulls one frame from the USB camera (UVC) and converts it to NV12 for the encoder:

void V4L2FramedSource::doGetNextFrame() {
    long bigin = get_time();
    registerOutputInterest();
    while(fTotOfFrameToSend < fMaxOfFrameToSend) {
        convernt_to_OutputBuffer();
    }
    long end = get_time();
    printf("V4L2FramedSource::doGetNextFrame use %d \n", end - bigin);
    // record the returned info
    fFrameSize = fNumValidDataBytes;  // one frame per call
    fNumTruncatedBytes = 0;
    reset();
    afterGetting(this);
}

4.2 StreamEncoder.cpp — MPP H.264 encode

StreamEncoder::continueReadProcessing1() calls the Rockchip MPP library to encode the NV12 frame to H.264:

void StreamEncoder::continueReadProcessing1(unsigned frameSize, unsigned numTruncatedBytes,
                                            struct timeval presentationTime,
                                            unsigned durationInMicroseconds) {
    fNumTruncatedBytes = numTruncatedBytes;
    fPresentationTime = presentationTime;
    fDurationInMicroseconds = durationInMicroseconds;
    encoder_to_h264();
    if (fNumValidDataBytes + dstsize < fOutputBufferSize && fTotOfFrameToSend < fMaxOfFrameToSend) {
        copy_to_outputbuffer();
    }
    fFrameSize = fNumValidDataBytes;
    gettimeofday(&fPresentationTime, NULL);
    reset();
    FramedSource::afterGetting(this);
}

5. Common pitfall: RGA / MPP version mismatch

The thread's replies contain a genuinely useful debugging record. Two failure modes came up repeatedly:

Recap

• live555 serves the RTSP stream; Rockchip MPP does the H.264 encode on hardware; RGA converts the camera format to NV12.
• The stream URL is printed at startup — use that exact value.
• Pin MPP / RGA / DRM to your BSP versions; a stray upgrade is the usual cause of rgaCreate error.
• Original author: hisping (Rockchip / Toybrick community). Source: t.rock-chips.com/forum.php?mod=viewthread&tid=895.