fetch(streamUrl, headers: 'Authorization': Basic $auth ) .then(response => const reader = response.body.getReader(); let boundary = ''; let buffer = '';
Elias froze the frame. The compression artifacts blurred the man’s face, turning him into a pixelated mosaic of fear. But in his hand, distinct against the gray desk, was a key card.
The foundation of fetching an MJPEG stream from an Axis camera lies in the mjpg.cgi script, which is located in the device's standard CGI directory. In its most basic form, the URL looks like this:
To handle hundreds or thousands of viewers, developers use a in the middle. The server makes a single connection to axis-cgi/mjpg/video.cgi , buffers the data, and rebroadcasts it to multiple clients. axis cgi mjpg
While modern surveillance relies on H.264/H.265 for storage efficiency, axis-cgi/mjpg remains relevant for several critical reasons:
However, in URL integration, credentials are often embedded in the request:
The axis-cgi/mjpg/video.cgi interface is supported across a vast ecosystem of software and libraries. The table below lists some notable examples. fetch(streamUrl, headers: 'Authorization': Basic $auth )
You can test or integrate these streams using tools like or directly in a web browser (with authentication): Example URL / Command Browser/VMS
Axis cameras feature a built-in web server that exposes an Application Programming Interface (API) called . This interface uses standard HTTP requests to communicate with the camera.
The magic happens when you combine Axis CGI commands to request an MJPG stream. The most common endpoints are: The foundation of fetching an MJPEG stream from
http://<IP_ADDRESS>/axis-cgi/mjpg/video.cgi
The Axis camera's web server may be configured to block requests from external referrers. You can configure the camera to relax this policy via a custom HTTP header setting. You would need to send a POST request to the camera's /axis-cgi/customhttpheader.cgi with a command like: