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Motion JPEG Streaming Server

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23 Apr 2012CPOL3 min read 443.3K   44.5K   138   107
Implementing a MJPEG (or Motion JPEG) streaming server that can be used to steam screenshots or any other source of images over the HTTP protocol to any web browser client (MJPEG stream writer is included in the library)

For mobile clients:

Samsung Galaxy SII

Other clients (such as Firefox, Chrome and VLC player):

Streaming the desktop images to different remote clients

Introduction

Motion JPEG is a stream of JPG images over HTTP protocol and it is commonly used for many multimedia applications specially in digital cameras (IP cameras). Although there are many ways to send images as a video to any remote computer, MJPEG is the preferred one since normally it does not need any client software to be installed on the remote computer! That is because it is supported by most of the common web browsers like Firefox and Chrome but unfortunately, it is not yet supported by Internet Explorer directly (but there are some plug-ins that make it possible to work with Internet Explorer).

Motivation

In many, I needed to stream a video of my desktop, camera, or whatever to a remote computer which has no client software to see my stream... In such a case, using Motion-JPEG streams is preferred because it needs no more than an internet browser. In this article, I'm not going to describe the internal structure of an MJPEG stream (for more information, please visit Motion_JPEG). Instead of that, I'm going to describe how to use this library for MJPEG streaming.

How to Use This Library

The main class in our library is ImageSreamingSever() which contains the following methods and properties:

Methods

  • void Start(): Starts the server on a specified TCP port
  • void Stop(): Stops the server and closes any open connections

Properties

  • ImagesSource: The images collection (IEnumerable<Image>) to be streamed to any connected client
  • Interval: The delay time (in milliseconds) between each sending image from the ImagesSource collection
  • IsRunning: Is a read-only bool property indicating the status of the server
  • Clients: Returns a read-only collection of the currently connected socket of each client

Example

In order to implement a streaming server that can send a video of your desktop screen to any connected client, you'll need only two lines of code using our ImageStreamingServer, as follows:

C#
ImageStreamingServer server = new ImageStreamingServer(); 
server.Start(8080);

That's it !!!

Now if you open (for example) the Chrome Internet Explorer and write the IP of the server followed by colon and then the port number, in our example, it is something like this...

http://127.0.0.1:8080

...you will properly see a video of your computer screen in the explorer... and same if you do this from another computer (with the correct IP of your server), you should see something like this:

Google Chrome

Implementing Your Own ImagesSource

Actually, I've chosen IEnumerable<Image> as a source of images because of the flexibility that this interface is providing, for example, the default ImagesSource property of the class ImageStreamingServer is an IEnumerable<Image> of the desktop screen, but at the same time, you are free to implement any other type of image source you like by changing the value of that property.

Suppose you want to make the images source from the camera or from the images file of any folder in your computer, then your code should be something like this:

C#
IEnumerable<Image> CameraImagesSource() 
{ 
    // Your code must be here 
} 

IEnumerable<Image> FolderImagesSource(string path) 
{ 
    // Your code must be here 
}

As a real example, let's implement a source of images that streams all "*.jpg" photos from a specified folder path as follows:

C#
private IEnumerable<Image> FolderImagesSource(string path)
{
    var files = System.IO.Directory.GetFiles(path, "*.jpg");

    foreach (var file in files)
        yield return Image.FromFile(file);

    yield break;
}

private void Form1_Load(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
    var source = FolderImagesSource(@"C:\Pictures\");

    _Server = new ImageStreamingServer();
    _Server.ImagesSource = source;
    _Server.Start(8080);
}

Note: The above code can be shortened as follows (thanks to IEnumerable extensions and LINQ):

C#
var source = System.IO.Directory.GetFiles(@"C:\Pictures\", "*.jpg").Select(s => Image.FromFile(s));

_Server = new ImageStreamingServer(source);
_Server.Start(8080);

Supported Client Software

To see the streaming video of our server, you will need to use any software that supports Motion-JPEG streaming such as a Mozilla Firefox, Google's Chrome or VideoLAN Player (VLC):

Free client software for Windows PC

And finally, for your mobile (Android), use FireFox or any other free app that can be found on Google's market such as tinyCamMonitor (that was used in the picture below):

Samsung Galaxy SII

Future Versions

In the future versions of the library, I'm going to add a variety of image sources such as:

  • Images from a specific region of the screen
  • Images from a specific window in the system
  • Streaming images from a camera
  • All photos from any folder in a disk
  • And any other suggested sources of images you may want !? ...

And till that time, feel free to enjoy this version. ;-)

History

  • 23rd April, 2012: Initial version

License

This article, along with any associated source code and files, is licensed under The Code Project Open License (CPOL)


Written By
Team Leader Hawk International for Finance & Construction Ltd.
Yemen Yemen
Bachelor degree of Computer Sciences, Software developer using .NET (Visual Basic & C#).
I like the development of an Artificial Intelligence Systems, GPS Applications, GDI+, APIs, N-Tier Applications, Distributed Systems and Network Monitoring Systems.
Mobile Development (Windows Mobile & Android).

Comments and Discussions

 
QuestionThx! Pin
zuppaman15-Jan-13 6:02
zuppaman15-Jan-13 6:02 
QuestionWebcam Pin
mornej18-Dec-12 23:00
mornej18-Dec-12 23:00 
QuestionConnect IP Camera Pin
thuongbinh3-Oct-12 22:35
thuongbinh3-Oct-12 22:35 
QuestionIP Camera Live stream image loading Pin
RAJESHkharvi12-Sep-12 19:34
RAJESHkharvi12-Sep-12 19:34 
QuestionVote of 5 Pin
yetanotheruser927-Sep-12 2:38
yetanotheruser927-Sep-12 2:38 
GeneralMy vote of 5 Pin
Mahdi Nejadsahebi18-Aug-12 4:31
Mahdi Nejadsahebi18-Aug-12 4:31 
Questionconnect IP camera over the network Pin
Van Sereyboth30-Jul-12 23:34
Van Sereyboth30-Jul-12 23:34 
Question_Server.Stop() doesn´t work Pin
Paranosh30-Jul-12 6:36
Paranosh30-Jul-12 6:36 
Hi, i can´t stop the server (or restart stoping and plying), the thread is always waiting and never ends the subprocess (i think), can you fix it, please?

Regards.
QuestionMumtiple jpeg files created on the fly... Pin
Patrick Antonioli Ferraro25-Jul-12 7:37
Patrick Antonioli Ferraro25-Jul-12 7:37 
GeneralMy vote of 5 Pin
easternC10-Jul-12 20:08
easternC10-Jul-12 20:08 
GeneralRe: My vote of 5 Pin
binukumarnair31-Jul-19 2:40
binukumarnair31-Jul-19 2:40 
GeneralCool! Pin
y.konyshev21-Jun-12 10:06
y.konyshev21-Jun-12 10:06 
Questionprotect the access by user and password Pin
Alberto Llaguno18-Jun-12 11:02
Alberto Llaguno18-Jun-12 11:02 
QuestionHow do you get all the tcp clients ? Pin
choneshcl7-Jun-12 5:09
choneshcl7-Jun-12 5:09 
SuggestionAwesome Job, Looking forward to the update Pin
Lollaskates5-Jun-12 5:26
Lollaskates5-Jun-12 5:26 
Questiongood job Pin
hbcykensou4-Jun-12 1:13
hbcykensou4-Jun-12 1:13 
QuestionHow can I re-stream from IP camera ? Pin
Member 20224223-Jun-12 19:08
Member 20224223-Jun-12 19:08 
QuestionUse this on a Windows Phone Pin
t.a berglund24-Apr-12 3:47
t.a berglund24-Apr-12 3:47 
AnswerRe: Use this on a Windows Phone Pin
Ragheed Al-Tayeb24-Apr-12 5:03
Ragheed Al-Tayeb24-Apr-12 5:03 
GeneralRe: Use this on a Windows Phone Pin
t.a berglund24-Apr-12 8:09
t.a berglund24-Apr-12 8:09 
GeneralRe: Use this on a Windows Phone Pin
Ragheed Al-Tayeb24-Apr-12 11:00
Ragheed Al-Tayeb24-Apr-12 11:00 
GeneralRe: Use this on a Windows Phone Pin
t.a berglund25-Apr-12 2:03
t.a berglund25-Apr-12 2:03 
Questionnamespace rtaNetworking.Streaming Pin
Rohit Dubey from Hyderabad24-Apr-12 2:48
Rohit Dubey from Hyderabad24-Apr-12 2:48 
AnswerRe: namespace rtaNetworking.Streaming Pin
Ragheed Al-Tayeb24-Apr-12 4:56
Ragheed Al-Tayeb24-Apr-12 4:56 
GeneralRe: namespace rtaNetworking.Streaming Pin
Rohit Dubey from Hyderabad25-Apr-12 4:15
Rohit Dubey from Hyderabad25-Apr-12 4:15 

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