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Flex Video

Flex Video is a video streaming system built on GStreamer that provides real-time video transcoding, streaming, and distribution capabilities.

Features

  • Video Transcoding

    Transcode video streams between H.264, H.265, and AV1 codecs with configurable bitrate, resolution, and quality settings.

  • Camera Support

    Automatic detection and configuration of V4L2 cameras with hot-plug monitoring and capability enumeration.

  • Stream Announcements

    Auto-announce video feeds to CoT/ATAK, TAK Server, Lattice, and mDNS for seamless integration with tactical systems.

  • Screenshot Capture

    Capture periodic AVIF still images or motion sequences from video streams for archival or review.

Quick Start

Get Flex Video running in minutes:

# Pull and start all services
docker-compose up -d

# Access the web interface
open http://localhost:8080

# Run the self-extracting installer
sudo ./flex-video-installer-*.sh

# Access the web interface
open http://localhost:8080

Architecture Overview

Flex Video consists of three main containers:

Container Purpose Ports
flex-av1 GStreamer video processing engine 35391 (API), 8731 (RTSP)
flex-mtx MediaMTX RTSP/RTMP/WebRTC server 8554 (RTSP), 1935 (RTMP), 58080 (API)
flex-manager Web UI and REST API 8080 (Web), 3539 (API) 
┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│                         Flex Video                               │
├─────────────────┬─────────────────┬─────────────────────────────┤
│   flex-manager  │    flex-mtx     │         flex-av1            │
│   ┌───────────┐ │  ┌───────────┐  │  ┌───────────────────────┐  │
│   │  Web UI   │ │  │   RTSP    │  │  │  GStreamer Pipeline   │  │
│   │  :8080    │ │  │   :8554   │  │  │                       │  │
│   └───────────┘ │  ├───────────┤  │  │  ┌─────┐    ┌─────┐   │  │
│   ┌───────────┐ │  │   RTMP    │  │  │  │Decode├───►Encode│   │  │
│   │ REST API  │ │  │   :1935   │  │  │  └─────┘    └─────┘   │  │
│   │  :3539    │ │  ├───────────┤  │  │                       │  │
│   └───────────┘ │  │  WebRTC   │  │  │  RTSP Server :8731    │  │
│                 │  │  :58181   │  │  └───────────────────────┘  │
└─────────────────┴─────────────────┴─────────────────────────────┘

Next Steps