Tutorial: How to access the video stream from the Freebox Delta camera from any computer

During its latest Server update, a new feature that interested Free users was unveiled: the ability to access the video stream from the security pack camera and retrieve its URL.

Universe Freebox had already announced it to you a few weeks ago, it is now a reality for Freenauts. It is now possible to retrieve a URL allowing access to the video stream of the camera included in the security pack, but also of other cameras that you may have purchased from your subscriber area.

What can such a feature be used for?

The expectations concerning the arrival of this URL for Free users are high: to be able to monitor their home remotely, record the video stream, etc. In our test, you will see that it can be accessed from a multimedia player or a browser, which was not the case previously, the video stream being accessible only from the Freebox application or the television. As for recording, we couldn't find a workable solution. You may be able to make a video capture of your browser / media player on which you will broadcast your stream, without having a good image quality, a rather wobbly solution therefore. On the other hand, if you want to access it from any computer, Univers Freebox will explain everything to you in this tutorial. But first, we must retrieve this URL. Please note, the URL offered by the Freebox application only gives access to the stream on devices connected to the Freebox Delta, we will explain how to create a URL that can be used from anywhere further down in the tutorial.

Retrieve the URL from the Freebox app

Go to the "Home" tab of your Freebox app (both on iOS and Android). Your camera is thus displayed directly on your home page, you will need to click on the small "i" logo in the upper right corner of the video frame to access this URL. Then click on the small logo "more information on this object at the top right" of your screen and you have access to all the information concerning the video stream of your camera.

The URL you want to access is under the name "Stream", your username is under "Login" and your password under the name "Pass". Small problem however, it is not possible to copy and paste from your phone to retrieve the URL. You are therefore good at copying your URL by hand (watch out for typos!).

What means to view the video stream?

Media Players

Unfortunately, there is no VLC or Windows Media Player compatibility for this stream, so you will need to download a new media player. Among a large panel of players tested, including the most popular, we found GOM Player, a very complete tool that accepts the video stream from the camera via the URL. All you need to do is right-click to access the “open…” sub-menu, then select URL (or press Control + U for keyboard veterans) to access the window that will allow you to enter your URL.

In this window, enter your URL directly, and voila! The only catch is that you may get some pop-ups using this player. We advise you to use the URL on your browser instead. For information: the quality of the image will be strongly influenced by the upload speed of your Freebox.

Browser (Chrome and Firefox)

If you enter the URL offered by the Freebox application in a browser, it will not work. You will need an extension for Chrome or Firefox. For our part, we turned to Native HLS Playback, available on both browsers. Once this plug-in is added and activated, you will directly access the video stream on your favorite browser by entering your URL. Note that the extension for Chrome offers a PIP mode, which is not the case on Firefox..

How to create a URL usable everywhere?

Here we go into a slightly more technical part, for technophiles and home surveillance enthusiasts. Indeed, the URL as such cannot be used everywhere, the one provided by the Freebox application cannot be used elsewhere than on a device connected to your Freebox Delta. To do this, you need to retrieve the IPV4 address of your Freebox as well as the IP address of the camera on the same screen as the one where you retrieved the URL previously. The manipulation remains quite simple, however, once you know where to look.

Retrieving the IPV4 of your box

Free recently switched all its Freebox Delta subscribers to IPV6, however, it is necessary to recover IPV4 to view your stream because not all video playback applications support IPV6. To retrieve this IP address from the application, you will need to go to the "My Freebox" tab. Go to the "My Freebox Server" screen, then to "Freebox status".

Finally, go to the "NETWORK" menu, your IPV4 address will be displayed there. Write it down carefully. Congratulations, you have successfully completed the first step. Don't worry, the second will be a little faster. Freebox Server port forwarding to the IP camera Now that you have everything you need, go to the Freebox application settings. Then go to "Sports Management" under "Local Network". Press the "+" icon to add a new redirect. The purpose of this manipulation is to access the camera of the security pack and go to the IP of your box followed by the port you are going to define. Once all the information has been entered, as indicated below, all you have to do is validate. – Destination IP: This field corresponds to the IP of your camera retrieved earlier, 192.168.0.21 from us. – Source IP: You can add one or more IP(s) in order to only authorize connections from known addresses, your work for example. If you leave this field blank, all IPs will be allowed to connect. Rest assured, you need the username and password to play the video stream. We left the field empty in order to connect to the stream from any connection, and in particular a mobile connection. – Protocol: Do not change anything, leave in TCP. – Source ports: We advise you to avoid the ports used by other applications, for this purpose, you must use a port between 1024 and 32564. On our side, we have chose to use 8021. You can set an IP range. This principle makes it possible to redirect several ports to the IP of the camera. – Destination port: Put 80, which corresponds to the HTTP port, if the video stream migrates to HTTPS, you will have to put 443 as the destination port. – Description: You can put the name you want, it allows you to simply view what the port forwarding corresponds to.

Once this manipulation has been validated on your mobile application, you just need to enter a specific HLS link that you can use anywhere. We for our part tried on another box, but also on the mobile network and the link worked. Your HLS link is composed like this (in bold, the values ​​to modify):

http://login:motdepasse@ipfreebox:port/img/stream.m3u8 (be careful, the URL must not contain spaces). As a reminder, your login and password are displayed on your mobile application.

Be careful though, keep this link secret, to avoid any intrusion into your privacy or risk of inadvertent use of your camera feed. However, this URL can be shared with trusted people if you want to allow them to monitor your home or your children during your absence for example.