What is RTSP

What exactly is RTSP 

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, record and pause, to facilitate real-time control of the media streaming from the server to a client (Video On Demand) or from a client to the server (Voice Recording).[Wikipedia]

Protocol Directives:

RTSP defines control sequences useful in controlling multimedia playback. RTSP has state (not like HTTP which is stateless), where an identifier is used 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.

Below are few RTSP requests:

Other requests are GET_PARAMETER, SET_PARAMETER, REDIRECT, ANNOUNCE

OPTIONS: 

An OPTIONS request returns the request types the server will accept.

DESCRIBE: 

A DESCRIBE request includes an RTSP URL (rtsp://...), and the type of reply data that can be handled. 

SETUP:

A SETUP request specifies how a single media stream must be transported. This must be done before a PLAY request is sent. 

PLAY:

A PLAY request will cause one or all media streams to be played. Play requests can be stacked by sending multiple PLAY requests

PAUSE:

A PAUSE request temporarily halts one or all media streams, so it can later be resumed with a PLAY request. 

RECORD:

This method initiates recording a range of media data according to the presentation description. 

TEARDOWN :

A TEARDOWN request is used to terminate the session. It stops all media streams and frees all session related data on the server.

To browse RTSP Streaming test samples visit:

http://g33ktricks.blogspot.com/p/the-rtsp-real-time-streaming-protocol.html