IP Cam live feed from C#

Question

I'm trying to get live feed from TPLink TL-SC3171G IP cam in C# app. I've tried using AForge.NET library but no luck. The sample code from AForge.NET doesn't work for me. I'm getting "The remote server returned an error: (401) unauthorized access."

I can access the cam via browser with basic ip adress: "http://192.168.168.20". In app I've tried with:

"http://username:[email protected]"
"http://username:[email protected]:port"

Can you please help me with some direction. It really doesn't have to be AForge.NET library.

This is the code:

using AForge.Video;
using AForge.Video.DirectShow;

namespace Player
{
    public partial class MainForm : Form
    {
        private Stopwatch stopWatch = null;

        // Class constructor
        public MainForm( )
        {
            InitializeComponent( );
        }

        private void MainForm_FormClosing( object sender, FormClosingEventArgs e )
        {
            CloseCurrentVideoSource( );
        }

        // "Exit" menu item clicked
        private void exitToolStripMenuItem_Click( object sender, EventArgs e )
        {
            this.Close( );
        }

        // Open local video capture device
        private void localVideoCaptureDeviceToolStripMenuItem_Click( object sender, EventArgs e )
        {
            VideoCaptureDeviceForm form = new VideoCaptureDeviceForm( );

            if ( form.ShowDialog( this ) == DialogResult.OK )
            {
                // create video source
                VideoCaptureDevice videoSource = form.VideoDevice;

                // open it
                OpenVideoSource( videoSource );
            }
        }

        // Open video file using DirectShow
        private void openVideofileusingDirectShowToolStripMenuItem_Click( object sender, EventArgs e )
        {
            if ( openFileDialog.ShowDialog( ) == DialogResult.OK )
            {
                // create video source
                FileVideoSource fileSource = new FileVideoSource( openFileDialog.FileName );

                // open it
                OpenVideoSource( fileSource );
            }
        }

        // Open JPEG URL
        private void openJPEGURLToolStripMenuItem_Click( object sender, EventArgs e )
        {
            URLForm form = new URLForm( );

            form.Description = "Enter URL of an updating JPEG from a web camera:";
            form.URLs = new string[]
                {
                    "http://195.243.185.195/axis-cgi/jpg/image.cgi?camera=1",
                };

            if ( form.ShowDialog( this ) == DialogResult.OK )
            {
                // create video source
                JPEGStream jpegSource = new JPEGStream( form.URL );

                // open it
                OpenVideoSource( jpegSource );
            }
        }

        // Open MJPEG URL
        private void openMJPEGURLToolStripMenuItem_Click( object sender, EventArgs e )
        {
            URLForm form = new URLForm();

            form.Description = "Enter URL of an MJPEG video stream:";
            form.URLs = new string[]
                {
                    "http://195.243.185.195/axis-cgi/mjpg/video.cgi?camera=4",
                    "http://195.243.185.195/axis-cgi/mjpg/video.cgi?camera=3",
                    "http://192.168.168.20:80",
                };

            if ( form.ShowDialog( this ) == DialogResult.OK )
            {
                // create video source
                MJPEGStream mjpegSource = new MJPEGStream( form.URL );


                // open it
                OpenVideoSource( mjpegSource );
            }
        }

        // Open video source
        private void OpenVideoSource( IVideoSource source )
        {
            // set busy cursor
            this.Cursor = Cursors.WaitCursor;

            // stop current video source
            CloseCurrentVideoSource( );

            // start new video source
            videoSourcePlayer.VideoSource = source;
            videoSourcePlayer.Start( );

            // reset stop watch
            stopWatch = null;

            // start timer
            timer.Start( );

            this.Cursor = Cursors.Default;
        }

        // Close video source if it is running
        private void CloseCurrentVideoSource( )
        {
            if ( videoSourcePlayer.VideoSource != null )
            {
                videoSourcePlayer.SignalToStop( );

                // wait ~ 3 seconds
                for ( int i = 0; i < 30; i++ )
                {
                    if ( !videoSourcePlayer.IsRunning )
                        break;
                    System.Threading.Thread.Sleep( 100 );
                }

                if ( videoSourcePlayer.IsRunning )
                {
                    videoSourcePlayer.Stop( );
                }

                videoSourcePlayer.VideoSource = null;
            }
        }

        // New frame received by the player
        private void videoSourcePlayer_NewFrame( object sender, ref Bitmap image )
        {
            DateTime now = DateTime.Now;
            Graphics g = Graphics.FromImage( image );

            // paint current time
            SolidBrush brush = new SolidBrush( Color.Red );
            g.DrawString( now.ToString( ), this.Font, brush, new PointF( 5, 5 ) );
            brush.Dispose( );

            g.Dispose( );
        }

        // On timer event - gather statistics
        private void timer_Tick( object sender, EventArgs e )
        {
            IVideoSource videoSource = videoSourcePlayer.VideoSource;

            if ( videoSource != null )
            {
                // get number of frames since the last timer tick
                int framesReceived = videoSource.FramesReceived;

                if ( stopWatch == null )
                {
                    stopWatch = new Stopwatch( );
                    stopWatch.Start( );
                }
                else
                {
                    stopWatch.Stop( );

                    float fps = 1000.0f * framesReceived / stopWatch.ElapsedMilliseconds;
                    fpsLabel.Text = fps.ToString( "F2" ) + " fps";

                    stopWatch.Reset( );
                    stopWatch.Start( );
                }
            }
        }
    }
}

Answer 1

For now I did it this way:

string sourceURL = "http://ipaddress/jpg/image.jpg";
            byte[] buffer = new byte[100000];
            int read, total = 0;
            // create HTTP request
            HttpWebRequest req = (HttpWebRequest)WebRequest.Create(sourceURL);
            req.Credentials = new NetworkCredential("username", "pass");
            // get response
            WebResponse resp = req.GetResponse();
            // get response stream
            Stream stream = resp.GetResponseStream();
            // read data from stream
            while ((read = stream.Read(buffer, total, 1000)) != 0)
            {
                total += read;
            }
            // get bitmap
            Bitmap bmp = (Bitmap)Bitmap.FromStream(
                          new MemoryStream(buffer, 0, total));

            pictureBox1.Image = bmp;

Of course I've put this code in a thread and I call it every 500 ms.