The Real Time Streaming Protocol (RTSP) is a network control protocol designed for use in entertainment and communications systems to control streaming media servers. The protocol is used for establishing and controlling media sessions between end points. Clients of media servers issue VCR-style commands, such as play and pause, to facilitate real-time control of playback of media files from the server.
The transmission of streaming data itself is not a task of RTSP. Most RTSP servers use the Real-time Transport Protocol (RTP) in conjunction with Real-time Control Protocol (RTCP) for media stream delivery. However, some vendors implement proprietary transport protocols. The RTSP server software from Real5Networks, for example, also used RealNetworks' proprietary Real Data Transport (RDT).
RTSP was developed by RealNetworks, Netscape and Columbia University, with the first draft submitted to IETF in 1996. It was standardized by the Multiparty Multimedia Session Control Working Group (MMUSIC WG) of the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) and published as RFC 2326 in 1998. RTSP 2.0 is currently under development as a replacement of RTSP 1.0. RTSP 2.0 is based on RTSP 1.0 but is not backwards compatible other than in the basic version negotiation mechanism.
RTSP using RTP and RTCP allows for the implementation of rate adaptation
Protocol directives
While similar in some ways to HTTP, RTSP defines control sequences useful in controlling multimedia playback. While HTTP is stateless, RTSP has state; an identifier is used when needed to track concurrent sessions. Like HTTP, RTSP uses TCP to maintain an end-to-end connection and, while most RTSP control messages are sent by the client to the server, some commands travel in the other direction (i.e. from server to client).
Presented here are the basic RTSP requests. Some typical HTTP requests, like the OPTIONS request, are also available. The default transport layer port number is 554 for both TCP and UDP, the latter being rarely used for the control requests.
OPTIONSAn OPTIONS request returns the request types the server will accept.
C->S: OPTIONS rtsp://example.com/media.mp4 RTSP/1.0 CSeq: 1 Require: implicit-play Proxy-Require: gzipped-messages S->C: RTSP/1.0 200 OK CSeq: 1 Public: DESCRIBE, SETUP, TEARDOWN, PLAY, PAUSE
DESCRIBEA DESCRIBE request includes an RTSP URL (rtsp://...), and the type of reply data that can be handled. This reply includes the presentation description, typically in Session Description Protocol (SDP) format. Among other things, the presentation description lists the media streams controlled with the aggregate URL. In the typical case, there is one media stream each for audio and video.
C->S: DESCRIBE rtsp://example.com/media.mp4 RTSP/1.0 CSeq: 2 S->C: RTSP/1.0 200 OK CSeq: 2 Content-Base: rtsp://example.com/media.mp4 Content-Type: application/sdp Content-Length: 460 m=video 0 RTP/AVP 96 a=control:streamid=0 a=range:npt=0-7.741000 a=length:npt=7.741000 a=rtpmap:96 MP4V-ES/5544 a=mimetype:string;"video/MP4V-ES" a=AvgBitRate:integer;304018 a=StreamName:string;"hinted video track" m=audio 0 RTP/AVP 97 a=control:streamid=1 a=range:npt=0-7.712000 a=length:npt=7.712000 a=rtpmap:97 mpeg4-generic/32000/2 a=mimetype:string;"audio/mpeg4-generic" a=AvgBitRate:integer;65790 a=StreamName:string;"hinted audio track"
SETUPA SETUP request specifies how a single media stream must be transported. This must be done before a PLAY request is sent. The request contains the media stream URL and a transport specifier. This specifier typically includes a local port for receiving RTP data (audio or video), and another for RTCP data (meta information). The server reply usually confirms the chosen parameters, and fills in the missing parts, such as the server's chosen ports. Each media stream must be configured using SETUP before an aggregate play request may be sent.
C->S: SETUP rtsp://example.com/media.mp4/streamid=0 RTSP/1.0 CSeq: 3 Transport: RTP/AVP;unicast;client_port=8000-8001 S->C: RTSP/1.0 200 OK CSeq: 3 Transport: RTP/AVP;unicast;client_port=8000-8001;server_port=9000-9001 Session: 12345678
PLAYA PLAY request will cause one or all media streams to be played. Play requests can be stacked by sending multiple PLAY requests. The URL may be the aggregate URL (to play all media streams), or a single media stream URL (to play only that stream). A range can be specified. If no range is specified, the stream is played from the beginning and plays to the end, or, if the stream is paused, it is resumed at the point it was paused.
C->S: PLAY rtsp://example.com/media.mp4 RTSP/1.0 CSeq: 4 Range: npt=5-20 Session: 12345678 S->C: RTSP/1.0 200 OK CSeq: 4 Session: 12345678 RTP-Info: url=rtsp://example.com/media.mp4/streamid=0;seq=9810092;rtptime=3450012
PAUSEA PAUSE request temporarily halts one or all media streams, so it can later be resumed with a PLAY request. The request contains an aggregate or media stream URL. A range parameter on a PAUSE request specifies when to pause. When the range parameter is omitted, the pause occurs immediately and indefinitely.
C->S: PAUSE rtsp://example.com/media.mp4 RTSP/1.0 CSeq: 5 Session: 12345678 S->C: RTSP/1.0 200 OK CSeq: 5 Session: 12345678
RECORDThis method initiates recording a range of media data according to the presentation description. The time stamp reflects start and end time(UTC). If no time range is given, use the start or end time provided in the presentation description. If the session has already started, commence recording immediately. The server decides whether to store the recorded data under the request URI or another URI. If the server does not use the request URI, the response should be 201 and contain an entity which describes the states of the request and refers to the new resource, and a Location header.
C->S: RECORD rtsp://example.com/media.mp4 RTSP/1.0 CSeq: 6 Session: 12345678 S->C: RTSP/1.0 200 OK CSeq: 6 Session: 12345678
ANNOUNCEThe ANNOUNCE method serves two purposes:When sent from client to server, ANNOUNCE posts the description of a presentation or media object identified by the request URL to a server. When sent from server to client, ANNOUNCE updates the session description in real-time. If a new media stream is added to a presentation (e.g., during a live presentation), the whole presentation description should be sent again, rather than just the additional components, so that components can be deleted.