Does an IP Camera still transmit data even if there are no viewers connected?

[Sean Valentine]

Hi,

I've only just started using Ant Media for a company project so i'm not too familiar with Ant Media Server or Media Servers in general so i hope this isn't a stupid or obvious question.

We use IP Cameras across the UK and Australia to monitor various sites and projects and we need to be able to view the live image from time to time and also to allow our customers to view the images, sometimes in the tens / hundreds depending on the project.

Our only issue is we use 3G / 4G routers to do this and we don't have unlimited data. Most of our Sim contracts are for 15GB per month, which is enough for intermittent viewing but not for constant streaming.

So my question is, if i create a new IP Camera connection in the Live App section inside Ant Media, even if there are 0 viewers, does the camera still transfer the stream to the Media Server or is it more of ad-hoc connection and data is only transmitted once a viewer is live.

Many thanks

[Murat Aydin]

Hi Sean,

Thanks for reaching out. IP Camera is not controlled by AntMedia Server. AntMedia Server creates a url, and ip camera streams to that url. 

You could use REST APIs, and you could start and stop stream periodically. Ex: every 15 minutes. AntMedia Server can create a preview, a png for the stream. You could serve it to your clients.

https://github.com/ant-media/Ant-Media-Server/wiki/Play-Live-and-VoD-Streams-and-Previews

https://antmedia.io/rest/

Hope this helps.

Best regards,

--

Murat AYDIN

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