Step 3: Send Data to a Kinesis Video Stream

This section describes how to send media data from a camera to the Kinesis video stream you created in the previous step. This section uses the C++ Producer Library as a GStreamer plugin.

To easily send media from a variety of devices on a variety of operating systems, this tutorial uses GStreamer, an open-source media framework that standardizes access to cameras and other media sources.

The GStreamer example application is supported on the following operating systems:

• Ubuntu

• macOS

• Microsoft Windows

• Raspbian (Raspberry Pi)

For more information about using the GStreamer plugin to stream video from a file or an RTSP stream from a camera, see Example: Kinesis Video Streams Producer SDK GStreamer Plugin.

Download the C++ Producer SDK

The GStreamer sample is included in the C++ Producer SDK. You can download the C++ Producer SDK from Github using the following Git command:

$ git clone https://github.com/awslabs/amazon-kinesis-video-streams-producer-sdk-cpp 

For information about SDK prerequisites and downloading, see Step 1: Download and Configure the C++ Producer Library Code.

Compile the GStreamer Example

You can compile and install the GStreamer sample in the kinesis-video-native-build directory using the following commands:

• macOS:

  • Install homebrew

  • Run brew install pkg-config openssl cmake gstreamer gst-plugins-base gst-plugins-good gst-plugins-bad gst-plugins-ugly log4cplus

  • Go to kinesis-video-native-build directory and run ./min-install-script

• Ubuntu and Raspbian:

  • Run the following:

    • $ sudo apt-get update

    • $ sudo apt-get install libgstreamer1.0-dev libgstreamer-plugins-base1.0-dev gstreamer1.0-plugins-base-apps

    • $ sudo apt-get install gstreamer1.0-plugins-bad gstreamer1.0-plugins-good gstreamer1.0-plugins-ugly gstreamer1.0-tools

  • If on Raspbian, run $ sudo apt-get install gstreamer1.0-omx after running previous commands.

  • Go to kinesis-video-native-build directory and run ./min-install-script

• Windows:

  • Inside mingw32 or mingw64 shell, go to kinesis-video-native-build directory and run ./min-install-script

Run the GStreamer Example

The GStreamer application sends media from your camera to the Kinesis Video Streams service. You can run the GStreamer example application for your operating system with the following commands. Run the example application from the kinesis-video-native-build/downloads/local/bin directory. Use the following parameters for the command:

• Access key: The AWS access key you recorded in the first step of this tutorial.

• Secret key: The AWS secret key you recorded in the first step of this tutorial.

• AWS Region: A region that supports Kinesis Video Streams. For information on supported regions, see Amazon Kinesis Video Streams Regions.

Run the GStreamer Example on Ubuntu

You can run the GStreamer example application on Ubuntu with the following command. Specify your camera device with the device parameter.

$ gst-launch-1.0 v4l2src device=/dev/video0 ! videoconvert ! video/x-raw,format=I420,width=640,height=480 ! x264enc bframes=0 key-int-max=45 bitrate=512 tune=zerolatency ! h264parse ! video/x-h264,stream-format=avc,alignment=au,profile=baseline ! kvssink stream-name="MyKinesisVideoStream" storage-size=512 access-key="YourAccessKey" secret-key="YourSecretKey" aws-region="YourAWSRegion"

Run the GStreamer Example on macOS

You can run the GStreamer example application on MacOS with the following command:

$ gst-launch-1.0 autovideosrc ! videoconvert ! video/x-raw,format=I420,width=1280,height=720 ! vtenc_h264_hw allow-frame-reordering=FALSE realtime=TRUE max-keyframe-interval=45 bitrate=512 ! h264parse ! video/x-h264,stream-format=avc,alignment=au,profile=baseline ! kvssink stream-name=MyKinesisVideoStream storage-size=512 access-key="YourAccessKey" secret-key="YourSecretKey" aws-region="YourAWSRegion"

Run the GStreamer Example on Windows

You can run the GStreamer example application on Windows with the following command:

$ gst-launch-1.0 ksvideosrc ! videoconvert ! video/x-raw,format=I420,width=640,height=480 ! x264enc bframes=0 key-int-max=45 bitrate=512 tune=zerolatency ! h264parse ! video/x-h264,stream-format=avc,alignment=au,profile=baseline ! kvssink stream-name="MyKinesisVideoStream" storage-size=512 access-key="YourAccessKey" secret-key="YourSecretKey" aws-region="YourAWSRegion"

Run the GStreamer Example on Raspbian (Raspberry Pi)

You can run the GStreamer example application on Raspbian with the following command. Specify your camera device with the device parameter.

$ gst-launch-1.0 v4l2src device=/dev/video0 ! videoconvert ! video/x-raw,format=I420,width=640,height=480 ! omxh264enc control-rate=2 target-bitrate=512000 periodicity-idr=45 inline-header=FALSE ! h264parse ! video/x-h264,stream-format=avc,alignment=au,profile=baseline ! kvssink stream-name="MyKinesisVideoStream" access-key="YourAccessKey" secret-key="YourSecretKey" aws-region="YourAWSRegion"

Consume Media Data

You can consume media data by either viewing it in the console, or by creating an application that reads media data from a stream using HLS.

View Media Data in the Console

To view the media data sent from your camera in the Kinesis Video Streams console, open the Kinesis Video Streams console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/kinesisvideo/, and choose the MyKinesisVideoStream stream on the Manage Streams page. The video plays in the Video Preview pane.

Consume Media Data using HLS

You can create a client application that consumes data from a Kinesis video stream using Hypertext Live Streaming (HLS). For information about creating an application that consumes media data using HLS, see Kinesis Video Streams Playback.

Next Step

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