Q: Why won't my IP camera connect to Wowza Video?
A #1: Wowza Video cannot access your IP camera.
To access your IP Camera from the Internet, you will need to identify your public IP address and configure your router/firewall to send requests on the applicable ports to your IP Camera.
You (or a network administrator) must access your network firewall to open and forward these ports to your IP Camera. This is not a service Wowza provides, however, the website www.portforward.com provides all sorts of instructions for various routers.
Once your port configuration is completed, from a computer on the same network as your IP Camera, you can visit http://www.whatismyipaddress.com where your public IP will be displayed. In most situations, using your IP will direct you to your IP camera as long as the ports are open and forwarded correctly.
Once you've made these changes, you can test if the IP Camera is accessible from Wowza Video.
A #2: Your IP camera requires authentication.
You can include the authentication details in the URI you configure in Wowza Video. The format of the URI would look similar to this:
rtsp://username:password@[IP Camera Address]
If authentication information, such as username and password is included in the source URL, it can only contain an alphanumeric, period (.), underscore (_), and hyphen (-) characters.
A #3: Your IP camera may be sending additional tracks that Wowza Video does not recognize.
Filter unknown tracks
Some IP cameras send application tracks or metadata that Wowza Streaming Video can't parse, which can cause the Video Snapshot preview to not appear in Wowza Streaming Video even though data shows for Inbound Bitrate: Actual. You can remove these tracks from the stream by using turning on the Filter Unknown Tracks property.
- Click Advanced on the menu bar and then click Transcoders.
- Select the RTSP transcoder.
- Click the Properties tab and then click Edit.
- Select Enabled for the Filter Unknown Tracks property and then specify True to remove the tracks from the RTSP source stream. The default, False, leaves unidentifiable tracks in the stream.
For more troubleshooting steps to help you with connecting your IP camera to Wowza Video visit the articles below.
Troubleshoot problematic or failed RTSP streams between IP cameras and Wowza Video
Connect an IP camera to Wowza Video