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Seymour Birkhoff
Seymour Birkhoff

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How We Convert RTSP Camera Streams to Browser-Playable HLS for Kazakhstan's Government Portal

#webdev #showdev #devops #networking

Since January 1, 2026, manufacturers in Kazakhstan must provide live online video surveillance at their production facilities to be included in the Registry of Manufacturers and obtain the ST-KZ certificate. The government portal e-ondiris.gov.kz requires a web link to the camera stream that opens in a standard browser.

Sounds simple. In practice — not so much.

The Problem

IP surveillance cameras (Hikvision, Dahua, Uniview, etc.) stream video via RTSP (Real Time Streaming Protocol) — a binary protocol that browsers don't support. You can't just paste rtsp://admin:password@192.168.1.64:554/Streaming/Channels/101 into a government form and expect it to work.

On top of that:

  • ~70% of enterprises in Kazakhstan lack a static IP address
  • Double NAT — camera behind a router, behind another ISP router
  • No IT staff — factory directors don't configure nginx and ffmpeg

We built RTSP.KZ to solve this.

Architecture

We support three connection methods:

1. Pull (RTSP)

If the enterprise has a static IP with port 554 forwarded, our server pulls the RTSP stream directly.

Camera (RTSP:554) → Internet → RTSP.KZ server → HLS → Browser
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2. Push (RTMP)

The camera or NVR pushes the stream to our server via RTMP.

Camera → NVR (RTMP push) → RTSP.KZ server → HLS → Browser
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3. VPN Tunnel (WireGuard)

For cameras without a static IP. A WireGuard client and lightweight MediaMTX media server run on the enterprise's PC.

Camera (LAN) → PC with MediaMTX → WireGuard VPN → RTSP.KZ server → HLS → Browser
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Tech Stack

  • MediaMTX — media server for receiving RTSP/RTMP streams and converting to HLS (written in Go, minimal resources)
  • FastAPI (Python) — backend API
  • React 18 + TypeScript — frontend SPA + static landing for SEO
  • PostgreSQL — primary database
  • Redis — caching, queues
  • Nginx — reverse proxy, SSL termination
  • WireGuard — VPN for cameras behind NAT
  • Docker Compose — orchestration

RTSP → HLS Conversion

The key process is remuxing RTSP into HLS (HTTP Live Streaming). HLS splits the video stream into short .ts segments described in a .m3u8 playlist. Every modern browser plays HLS natively.

RTSP (H.264/H.265) → MediaMTX → HLS (.m3u8 + .ts segments)
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We do no transcoding — just repackaging from RTSP container to MPEG-TS. This allows handling dozens of streams on a single server without a GPU.

The result is a URL like:

https://stream.rtsp.kz/{camera_id}/index.m3u8
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This link goes directly into the e-ondiris.gov.kz application form.

Solving NAT with WireGuard

The most common case — no static IP. In Kazakhstan, that's ~70% of enterprises.

Our solution:

  1. Generate a WireGuard keypair on the server
  2. Allocate a subnet from the pool (10.13.x.0/24)
  3. Send the client a WireGuard config
  4. On the client's PC, run MediaMTX configured to pull from the local camera and relay through VPN 
# mediamtx.yml on client PC
paths:
  camera1:
    source: rtsp://admin:password@192.168.1.64:554/Streaming/Channels/101
    sourceProtocol: tcp
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WireGuard was chosen for:

  • Minimal overhead (~3% bandwidth)
  • Works through any NAT, including mobile CGNAT
  • Simple setup (single config file)
  • Stability during network switches

Camera Monitoring

For each camera, we run a TCP ping every 30 seconds and display status in the dashboard:

  • 🟢 Online — camera reachable, stream active
  • 🔴 Offline — no connection
  • 📊 Latency — 24-hour ping graph

Results

  • Average camera setup time: 5-10 minutes
  • Stream uptime: 99.5%+
  • Latency: under 3 seconds
  • Compatible with: Hikvision, Dahua, Trassir, Uniview, TP-Link, Axis, Hanwha, and NVR/DVR devices

Key Takeaways

  1. MediaMTX is an excellent lightweight alternative to FFmpeg for simple remuxing
  2. WireGuard solves NAT better than any STUN/TURN for surveillance cameras
  3. HLS remains the most reliable format for browser-based streaming
  4. Sometimes a niche government regulation creates a real technical challenge worth solving

Check out RTSP.KZ | Camera setup guides | Pricing

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