Bridging RTSP to WebRTC on iOS: Feeding GStreamer Frames into a WebRTC Pipeline

Short summary

This article explains how to ingest RTSP streams from remote IP cameras and republish them over WebRTC on iOS by building a bridge using GStreamer for decoding and format conversion, then injecting raw YUV frames into the WebRTC SDK through a custom capturer. The architecture prioritizes low latency through frame dropping rather than queuing, with specific GStreamer pipeline configuration and GLib threading patterns detailed. While the example uses Amazon Kinesis Video Streams, the core technique applies to any libwebrtc-based implementation.

• •RTSP ingestion bridge: GStreamer handles RTSP session setup, H.264 decoding, and YUV format conversion
• •Low-latency design: max-buffers=1 and drop=true implement 'latest frame wins' to prevent stale backlogs
• •Provider-agnostic: core technique works with any SFU/managed WebRTC service, not just Kinesis

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