Your cameras speak RTSP. Your browser doesn't.

That is why so much camera video ends up stuck inside an NVR or a desktop client. What you need is a server in the middle that ingests the RTSP feed and hands the browser WebRTC. This guide walks through setting that up on AWS with Ant Media Server. It takes about ten minutes and ends with a camera playing in a browser tab at roughly half a second of delay.

Step 1: Launch the server

Subscribe to Ant Media Server on AWS Marketplace and launch a c5.xlarge instance. The image boots with the server already running.

Two things to get right at launch:

Keep the recommended security group, or open TCP 5080 and 5443 (panel and HTTPS) and UDP 50000-60000 (WebRTC media).

Attach an Elastic IP so the address doesn't change when the instance restarts.

Step 2: Open the panel

Go to http://your-server-ip:5080 and log in:

Username: JamesBond

Password: your AWS instance ID

Change the password straight away.…