WebRTC P2P Streaming
Meridian VMS supports WebRTC peer-to-peer streaming for the lowest possible latency when viewing cameras remotely.
How P2P Works
Section titled “How P2P Works”When you view a camera through the cloud portal, the video stream goes directly from your recorder to your browser — bypassing the cloud server entirely. The cloud server only handles the initial signaling (a few KB).
Signaling: Browser → Cloud → VMS (tiny)Video: Browser ←→ Recorder (direct P2P)Requirements
Section titled “Requirements”For P2P to work, you need to forward UDP port 8555 on your router to the recording server.
Port Forward Setup
Section titled “Port Forward Setup”| Setting | Value |
|---|---|
| Protocol | UDP |
| External Port | 8555 |
| Internal IP | Your recorder’s IP (e.g. 192.168.1.100) |
| Internal Port | 8555 |
WebRTC Sidecar
Section titled “WebRTC Sidecar”Meridian VMS includes a WebRTC sidecar on each recording server that reads from the stream relay and serves WebRTC streams with trickle ICE support.
The sidecar is configured automatically during installation. For P2P to work, you need to ensure your public IP and STUN server are correctly configured in the system settings.
Fallback
Section titled “Fallback”If P2P is not available (no port forward, strict firewall), the portal automatically falls back to fMP4 streaming over WebSocket through the cloud server. This works everywhere but adds latency and uses cloud bandwidth.