The VideoLAN Forums

hi

i am using a videomanagement software to receive an rtsp stream typically sourced from ip cameras.
now i'd like to simulate a camera by streaming a video file from libvlc. this works so far. Now the problem starts when i like to pause the stream.
the client receives no more frames and the "camera" is not accessible anymore (logical consequence)

to avoid this i tried to change the source video by streaming a still image transcoded to h264 while paused and change back to the desired videostream when resuming.

the change is not fluent enough and the rtsp session is restarting at every change. so the "camera" does stream timeout and reconnects after a while

is there a possibility in (lib)vlc to freeze or pause a source stream while keeping the rtsp session and the client stream open ?
any other ideas to work around this problem?

With RTSP, only the client can pause/resume. This is by protocol design.

hi rémi

Thank you for the answer!
I don't know RTSP very well, but i thought that i have seen, that rtsp also supports multicast!?

how would that be possible to start/pause a stream if multiple clients are involved?
or does this work different in multicast?
if so, is there a possibility to get this working?

You can't pause a multicast stream.