MediaX¶

Real-Time Protocol (RTP) Video Streaming Library for C++

Overview¶

MediaX is a high-performance C++ library implementing RFC 4421 RTP (Real Time Protocol) Payload Format for Uncompressed Video and RFC 3984 for H.264 video and RFC 7798 for H.265 video. It is compliant with DEF STAN 00-082 (VIVOE) for real-time video streaming in defence and industrial applications.

Key Features¶

• MISRA C++:2023 - Library code lint-clean against MISRA C++:2023 with every deviation justified in source (see MISRA Compliance)
• Uncompressed Video Streaming - RGB24, YUV422, Mono8, Mono16 (RFC 4421)
• H.264 - VAAPI, NVIDIA NVENC/NVDEC, Jetson Multimedia API, V4L2 M2M (Raspberry Pi), Android AMediaCodec and OpenH264 (software)
• H.265 - Intel/AMD VAAPI (RFC 7798)
• AV1 - Intel 12th gen+ / AMD RDNA2+ via native VAAPI, plus Jetson decode
• JPEG - RFC 2435 Motion JPEG through libjpeg, interoperable with ffmpeg and GStreamer, with Qt6 wrappers
• Android Support - Native H.264 hardware encode/decode via NDK AMediaCodec, with Qt6 widget wrappers
• GigE Vision (experimental) - AIA GigE Vision 2.x industrial camera streaming (GVCP/GVSP/GenICam)
• RTSP Receiver - Pull H.264 video from IP cameras and RTSP servers (RFC 2326) over UDP, multicast or TCP, with Basic/Digest authentication, auto-reconnect and a stream liveness probe
• HLS Receiver - Play HTTP Live Streaming (RFC 8216) .m3u8 playlists with MPEG-TS H.264 segments, AES-128 decryption, variant selection and live refresh. Audio is delivered to the application as PCM or encoded data, and the hls-player example plays the live ABC TV feed with sound
• SRT Video (Drones) - Send and receive H.264, H.265 and AV1 over SRT with 100 to 500 ms latency, self-healing retransmission, optional AES encryption and caller, listener and rendezvous modes. Native implementation, no libsrt needed, H.264 and H.265 interoperable with ffmpeg, VLC and OBS
• Chromecast Casting - Detect Chromecasts on the network with multicast DNS and cast H.264 video, test cards or a SAP announced RTP stream to them as live HLS. Native implementation, no Cast SDK needed, OpenSSL only for the TLS control connection
• SAP/SDP Announcements - Automatic stream discovery (RFC 2974, RFC 4566)
• Cross-Platform - Linux x86_64, ARM64 (Jetson, Raspberry Pi), Android
• Multiple Language Bindings - C++, Python, Qt6
• Colourspace Conversion - CPU, AVX2 SIMD, CUDA GPU — including Bayer demosaicing
• Codec Query API - Runtime discovery of available encoders and decoders

Supported Standards¶

Supported Platforms¶

Windows is not a supported platform. See Hardware Acceleration for the full codec, hardware offload engine and platform matrices.

Supported Codecs¶

Hardware Offload Engines¶

MISRA Compliance¶

The src/ library code is analysed against MISRA C++:2023 with THEMIS Lint (themis-lint) as part of the build (make misra; make misrafix applies automatic corrections). The latest report (version 2.0.0-rc4, 64 files, 25,350 lines analysed) has no open findings. Every deviation is a misra-suppress override with an in-source justification, for example system-API casts and wire-packet overlays.

Why it matters for video¶

Video pipelines process untrusted network input at high rates: RTP/RTCP packets, SDP and RTSP text, and codec bitstreams. A single out-of-bounds read, integer overflow or use of uninitialised data in a depayloader can freeze a display, corrupt imagery or become a remotely exploitable fault. In vehicle, defence and industrial systems the picture can be safety- or mission-relevant (driver vision, targeting, situational awareness), so the library must behave predictably for years without surprises.

MISRA C++:2023 restricts the language to well-defined, analysable behaviour (no undefined or unspecified behaviour, explicit conversions, no hidden dynamic allocation or global state). That keeps latency and memory use bounded and makes the code easier to review and certify alongside DEF STAN 00-082 equipment.

The full report and trend dashboard are in the repository under reports/. "MISRA" is a registered trademark of HORIBA MIRA Limited, and use of the logo does not imply endorsement.

Quick Example¶

#include "rtp/rtp.h"

int main() {
  mediax::RtpSapTransmit<mediax::rtp::uncompressed::RtpUncompressedPayloader> rtp(
      "239.192.1.1", 5004, "my-stream", 640, 480, 30, "RGB24");

  std::vector<uint8_t> &data = rtp.GetBufferTestPattern();

  for (int i = 0; i < 1000; i++) {
    rtp.Transmit(data.data(), false);
  }

  return 0;
}

License¶

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.

Commercial licenses are available. Visit astutesys.com for more information.

Getting Help¶

• Documentation: You're reading it!
• Support: https://astutesys.com/support
• Email: support@astutesys.com
• GitHub Issues: Report a bug