Using VLC as a RTSP Server

[thor0215]

I added some documentation to the alexbelgium Birdnet-Go Home Assistant addon here:
https://github.com/alexbelgium/hassio-addons/tree/master/birdnet-go#setting-up-a-rtsp-source-using-vlc

Here is the snippet:

Setting up a RTSP Source using VLC

VLC opens a TCP port but the stream is udp. Because of this will need to configure Birdnet-Go to use udp. Adjust the config.yaml file to udp or use the birdnet-go command line option:

--rtsptransport udp --rtsp rtsp://192.168.1.21:8080/stream.sdp

Linux instructions

Run vlc without an interface using one of these commands:

# This should work for most devices
/usr/bin/vlc -I dummy -vvv alsa://hw:0,0 --no-sout-all --sout-keep --sout '#transcode{acodec=mpga}:rtp{sdp=rtsp://:8080/stream.sdp}'

# Try this if the first command does not work
/usr/bin/vlc -I dummy -vvv alsa://hw:4,0 --no-sout-all --sout-keep --sout '#rtp{sdp=rtsp://:8080/stream.sdp}'

Run arecord -l to get microphone hardware info

**** List of CAPTURE Hardware Devices ****
card 0: PCH [HDA Intel PCH], device 0: ALC3220 Analog [ALC3220 Analog]
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 2: S7 [SteelSeries Arctis 7], device 0: USB Audio [USB Audio]
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 3: Nano [Yeti Nano], device 0: USB Audio [USB Audio]
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 4: Device [USB PnP Sound Device], device 0: USB Audio [USB Audio]
  Subdevices: 0/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0

hw:4,0 = card 4: Device [USB PnP Sound Device], device 0: USB Audio [USB Audio]

Systemd service file example. Adjust the user:group accordingly. If you want to run as root, you will likely need to run vlc-wrapper instead of vlc.

[Unit]
Description=VLC Birdnet RTSP Server
Wants=network-online.target
After=network-online.target

[Service]
Type=simple
StandardOutput=journal
ExecStart=/usr/bin/vlc -I dummy -vvv alsa://hw:0,0 --sout '#transcode{acodec=mpga}:rtp{sdp=rtsp://:8080/stream.sdp}'
User=someone
Group=somegroup

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target