Displaying Video Stream from Motion on React Native

In this tutorial, we’ll look at how to retrieve a video stream from Motion with a React Native application.

Project configuration

We’ve set up a video stream with Motion on a Linux machine with address 192.168.1.92:8554 on the Wifi network.

The Motion program serves the video streams as an HTML page using the HTTP protocol. To retrieve this page, we use the react-native-webview library, which can display complete web pages in an application.

To install the library, enter the following command

npm install --save react-native-webview

Using WebView

To use the WebView component, simply import the

import {WebView} from 'react-native-webview'

and call the component in the App functional component renderer, specifying the video source

      <View style={{flex: 1 }}>

            <WebView
              source={{uri: "http://192.168.1.92:8554/"}}
              style={styles.webVideo} />

      </View>

With the following style sheet

var styles = StyleSheet.create({
  webVideo: {
    position: 'absolute',
    top: 0,
    left: 0,
    bottom: 0,
    right: 0,
  },
});

To take this a step further, we’ve created a textInput insert that allows us to update the stream url (or web page) with ipAddress and ipServer states.

Details can be found in the full code.

The video is displayed with a delay of less than 3 seconds and a quality that is not very fluid.

Full code for the React Native application to play a Motion video stream

In the following code we define textInput, which will enable us to update the value of ipAddress (stored ip value) and, when the button is pressed, update the url read by the WebView component (ipServer)

We’ve also added a real-time date and time display (currentDate) to evaluate the delay in receiving the video stream. We’ve commented on this function because it refreshes the application every second.

/**
 * https://github.com/react-native-webview/react-native-webview
 */
import React, { useEffect, useState } from 'react'
import { Text, View, StyleSheet, TextInput, TouchableOpacity } from 'react-native'
import {WebView} from 'react-native-webview'

const App = () =>  {
	const videoRef = React.createRef();
  const [ipAddress, setIpAddress] = useState("http://192.168.1.92:8554/");
  const [ipServer, setIpServer] = useState("http://192.168.1.92:8554/");
  //const [currentDate, setCurrentDate] = useState('');

  useEffect(() => {

    /*setInterval(() => {
      var date = new Date().getDate(); //Current Date
      var month = new Date().getMonth() + 1; //Current Month
      var year = new Date().getFullYear(); //Current Year
      var hours = new Date().getHours(); //Current Hours
      var min = new Date().getMinutes(); //Current Minutes
      var sec = new Date().getSeconds(); //Current Seconds
      setCurrentDate(
        date + '/' + month + '/' + year + ' ' + hours + ':' + min + ':' + sec
      );
    }, 1000)*/


	}, []);

  console.log("rendering...");

  return (
    <View style={{ flexGrow: 1, flex: 1 }}>
      <Text style={styles.mainTitle}>AC Video Player</Text>

      <View
              style={styles.inputBar}>        
              <TextInput
                style={styles.textInput}
                placeholder="Enter a message"
                value={ipAddress}
                onChangeText={(text) =>    setIpAddress(text)
                }
              />
              <TouchableOpacity
                        onPress={() =>  {
                          setIpServer(""); //force state change thus rendering
                          setIpServer(ipAddress);}
                        }
                        style={[styles.sendButton]}>
                        <Text
                          style={styles.buttonText}>
                          SEND
                        </Text>
                      </TouchableOpacity>
        </View>
      
      <View style={{flex: 1 }}>

            <WebView
              source={{uri: ipServer}}
              style={styles.webVideo} />

      </View>
      {/*<Text style={{textAlign: 'right'}}>{currentDate}</Text>*/}
    </View>

  )

}

export default App;

let BACKGROUND_COLOR = "#161616"; //191A19
let BUTTON_COLOR = "#346751"; //1E5128
let ERROR_COLOR = "#C84B31"; //4E9F3D
let TEXT_COLOR = "#ECDBBA"; //D8E9A8
var styles = StyleSheet.create({
  mainTitle:{
    color: TEXT_COLOR,
    fontSize: 30,
    textAlign: 'center',
    borderBottomWidth: 2,
    borderBottomColor: ERROR_COLOR,
  },

  webVideo: {
    position: 'absolute',
    top: 0,
    left: 0,
    bottom: 0,
    right: 0,
  },

  buttonText: {
    color: TEXT_COLOR,
    fontWeight: 'bold',
    fontSize: 12,
	  textAlign: 'center',
    textAlignVertical: 'center',
  },

  sendButton: {
    backgroundColor: BUTTON_COLOR,
    padding: 15,
    borderRadius: 15,
    margin: 2,
    paddingHorizontal: 20,
    },

  inputBar:{
    flexDirection: 'row',
    justifyContent: 'space-between',
    margin: 5,
  },  

  textInput:{
    backgroundColor: '#888888',
    margin: 2,
    borderRadius: 15,
    flex:3,
  },
});

Sources

• react-native-webview
• Video streaming with Motion
• Motion documentation