Intro - What is QAnotherRTSP and why was it created?

Those who follow me probably already know about my previous project, AnotherRTSP a small, simple, and lightweight player for monitoring security cameras. Since I was never an active Windows user (I only used it temporarily), I built that player in a way that seemed most comfortable and convenient for the Windows environment. After a short break, I switched back to Unix systems, specifically macOS, where I used SecuritySpy. That made me think: why not create a similar product (maybe even the same) but cross-platform, so it could run not only on macOS or Windows but also on Linux, BSD, and others? Currently, I’m practicing the Go programming language and recently started learning the Qt toolkit for building graphical UIs (check out my project Conan). That’s why I decided it was time to take on the challenge and build at least a comparable cross-platform alternative. Once again, we learn from mistakes. In AnotherRTSP, the mistake was using the easyrtsp library, which is semi-closed, hard to configure, unsuitable in many cases, and offers almost zero options for advanced users. This time, I chose to use the widely adopted FFmpeg library. I can say that this approach worked out much better. Of course, what you see now is just a preliminary version, but it already works quite well and conveniently—similar to the original AnotherRTSP (without MQTT or other advanced features). It’s a basic RTSP player with the same space-saving windows, plus a new feature: snap windows that stick together when placed side by side. The core functionality hasn’t changed: cameras are still easy to enable or disable, and almost all popular formats and codecs are supported. Most importantly, the app now works across Windows, macOS, and Linux. (Linux binaries aren’t available yet, but I’ll soon release an AppBundle.) This project required quite a bit of patience—integrating FFmpeg is not easy, and the chosen Qt bindings are still a relatively young project. But the results are very satisfying, and I believe they will please others too. Of course, don’t expect an enterprise-grade product, but as a basic tool for viewing RTSP camera streams, it works perfectly on all three major platforms. And in the future, I can confidently say we’ll have support for even more systems—maybe Haiku, BSD, Solaris, or other more exotic operating systems.

QAnotherRTSP is completely open source and released under the GPL-3.0 license.

Thank you for your attention, and I wish you an enjoyable experience! :-)

QAnotherRTSP

QAnotherRTSP is a lightweight cross-platform, multi-camera RTSP viewer with a system-tray UI, built in Go + Qt, focused on fast, live control.

• Tray-based control: one click to open/close each camera; states shown as checkboxes.
• Instant edits: add, edit, or remove cameras and the app applies changes live (no restart).
• Borderless windows (optional): clean frameless view with a small name label; drag to move, edge/corner to resize.
• Snap & stack: magnetic window snapping; glued groups move together. Hold Alt to temporarily disable snap.
• Per-camera tuning: RTSP over TCP, always-on-top, mute, stretch, and an FFmpeg params field (-fOPTION=…, -cOPTION=…) for advanced input/decoder options.
• Hardware decode: VideoToolbox on macOS (auto-fallback to software when unsupported).
• Simple config: settings saved to a YAML file in your user config directory.

In short: a fast, flexible RTSP viewer that lets you manage multiple feeds from the tray and tweak everything on the fly.

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Quick Start

1. Launch the app.
2. If you have no cameras configured, the Settings window opens.
3. Add a camera in Settings → Cameras → Add, enter its U, NameRL and options, then Save.
4. The camera opens immediately and also appears in the tray menu.

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Settings Window

The Settings window is a dialog with three tabs and a footer:

• Tabs

  • Cameras — manage your camera list.
  • Settings — global toggles like borderless windows and snapping.
  • Advanced — (reserved for future options).

• Footer

  • Save — writes changes to disk and applies them immediately.
  • Cancel — closes without saving further changes.

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Managing Cameras

Add

• Go to Settings → Cameras → Add.
• Fill in Name, URL, and optional flags.
• Click OK. The new camera:
  • appears in the list,
  • starts immediately,
  • is added to the tray menu.

Edit

• Select a camera → Edit.
• Change fields and OK. The camera:
  • restarts immediately with the new settings,

Remove

• Select a camera → Remove and confirm. The camera:
  • closes immediately,
  • is removed from the list,
  • and all cameras after it shift up; the app realigns internal indices and tray entries.

Note: “Save” persists changes to settings.yml. The live add/edit/remove effects happen right away so you can verify results instantly.

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Tray Menu

• Each camera has a checkbox item: checked = enabled/open, unchecked = disabled/closed.
• The tray refreshes when you add/edit/remove cameras, so it always reflects the current list and states.

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Window Modes & Controls

Camera Windows Without Titles (Borderless Mode)

• Settings → Camera windows without titles (checkbox).
• When enabled, camera windows are frameless (no OS title bar).
• A small name label appears at the top-left of the video so you can still see which camera you’re viewing.
• When you disable borderless mode, normal title bars return and the overlay label hides.

Move & Resize (Borderless)

• Move: click-drag anywhere that isn’t a resize edge.
• Resize: drag near an edge or corner (about an 8-pixel margin). The cursor changes to indicate the resize direction.
• Works only when borderless mode is enabled (and not fullscreen).

Snapping & Stacking (“Glue”)

• Settings → Enable window snapping (glue/stack) toggles this behavior.
• With snapping enabled:
  • Windows magnetically snap to the edges of other windows when you drag them within ~12 px.
  • If windows are already touching edge-to-edge, they become a stack: dragging one moves the whole glued group together.
• Hold Alt while dragging to temporarily disable snapping and stacking. (You move only the active window with no magnets.)
• Snapping/stacking only applies in borderless mode (and not fullscreen).

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Camera Options (Per-Camera)

• Use RTSP over TCP — helps with unstable networks/NATs.
• Always on top — keep the window above others.
• Mute audio — disable audio playback for this camera.
• FFmpeg params — advanced options (see below).
• Stretch video to window — fill the window area.
• HW acceleration — choose a hardware decoder (platform dependent).

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FFmpeg Params (Advanced)

Each camera’s FFmpeg params field accepts extra decoder/open options in a compact form:

• -fOPTION=value → input/format option (applies when opening the stream).
• -cOPTION=value → decoder option (applies when starting the codec).

Examples

-frtsp_transport=tcp -fstimeout=5000000 -cthreads=2 -cflags=+low_delay
-fuser_agent="AnotherRTSP/1.0"
-chwaccel=videotoolbox -chwaccel_output_format=nv12

Notes

• Space-separated; values may be in quotes.
• Invalid tokens (without =) are ignored.
• The app’s UI options (like RTSP over TCP, HwAccel) are applied before params and you can override default entries.
• For debugging, the app logs the effective options it set before opening.

Common keys

• Format/input (-f...): rtsp_transport, stimeout, max_delay, user_agent, probesize, analyzeduration.
• Decoder (-c...): threads, flags, hwaccel, hwaccel_output_format.

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Hardware Decoding (macOS)

• Use VideoToolbox via HwAccel = videotoolbox.
• Good default pairing: -chwaccel_output_format=nv12 (HW decode to NV12 on CPU; easy to render).
• For 10-bit HEVC (if supported): -chwaccel_output_format=p010le.
• If HW decode isn’t supported on your machine/stream, the app automatically falls back to software.

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Troubleshooting

• After restart, camera is slow to reconnect or logs “Operation not permitted”
  Many RTSP servers briefly hold sessions after close. The app waits for the previous decoder to stop, then retries with a short grace period and small backoff. If you still see transient failures:

  • keep RTSP over TCP on,
  • ensure the URL is correct,
  • try increasing -fstimeout or reducing latency keys like -fmax_delay.

• No video after changing FFmpeg params
  Remove recent custom flags to bisect. UI settings override conflicting entries.

• Video flickering (grey window) Add ffmpeg parameter: -cskip_frame=nokey

• Window won’t snap/stack
  Make sure borderless mode and Enable window snapping (glue/stack) are both enabled. Hold Alt only if you want to temporarily disable magnets.

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Shortcuts & Tips

• Drag + Alt — temporarily disable snapping/stacking while moving a borderless window.
• Resize from corners/edges — hover near edges to get the resize cursor.
• Name overlay (top-left) appears only in borderless mode; it updates when you rename a camera.

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Where the Config Lives

• The app saves configuration to your user config directory (e.g., ~/.config/another-rtsp/settings.yml).
• Save in the Settings dialog writes changes immediately.

Other tools

• Best tool for discover cameras