How RTMP and related protocol works
Adnan Akbar, Asfand Malik, Syed Ikram Ali
Abstract— RTMP (Real Time Messaging Protocol) is a system
for delivering on-demand and live media to Adobe Flash
applications. Adobe uses this technology to diver videos,
music and song on the internet to flash clients. RTMP
support videos on different formats and offer several
advantages over regular HTTP video download. People can
watch the video while it is being recorded. Videos delivered
over RTMP are more secure than regular HTTP. The report
contains a detailed description how the RTMP protocol
works and the basic difference between HTTP and RTMP.
I. INTRODUCTION
RTMP is a protocol used by the Flash Player to
deliver real time video and audio to clients using a
binary TCP connection or polling HTTP tunnel. To send
video or audio using webcam, camera or microphone to
an RTMP server you must use RTMP. RTMP supports
video in FLV and H.264 formats and audio in MP3 and
AAC formats. RTMP offers several advantages over
regular HTTP video download:
Flash Server Flash Player
RTMP
Fig: 1 RTMP protocol is used between Flash Media server and Flash
client for streaming media
The RTMP is like a translator making sure server and
clients understand each other and work together. RTMP
servers communicate with RTMP clients such as the
Flash player, giving complete support for streaming
media over the Internet. It works on a variety of levels.
It’s the backbone of Flash-based streaming video and
an essential part of streaming media. [4]
II. RTMP OPERATION
RTMP allows real-communication by maintaining a
single persistent connection between server and client.
The protocol has the ability to transmit large amount of
chunks into multiple smaller fragments .To guaranty
smooth delivery of data it can divide the chunks into
multiple fragments. For example it can split video and
audio into multiple fragments. The size of the fragment
is negotiated between server and client at run
time: the default fragment sizes are 64-bytes for audio
data, and 128 bytes for video data and most other data
types. The RTMP fragments can be multiplexed and
then de multiplexed at the receiving side. RTMP packets
across several different active channels being
interleaved in such a way as to ensure that each
channel meets its bandwidth, latency, and other
quality-of-service requirements. RTMP packets can be
sent on several channels and each channel is
independent of each other. For example there will be
separate channel for audio data stream and video data
stream. During a RTMP session, several channels may
be active simultaneously at any given time [3]
III. RTMP CLASSIFICATION
As many LAN networks and home firewalls block
connections via ports and protocols, RTMP solve the
problem by providing different variants of the protocol
that can be used successfully in environments where
security measures would block RTMP. The RTMP
variants are listed below. [2]
 RTMP (default) - This plain protocol work on the
top of TCP.The Adobe Flash Player uses the
RTMP protocol over port 80.
 RTMP (Tunnel) - It encapsulates the RTMP data
as valid HTTP, and by default communicates is
done on port 80. While RTMPT requires higher
bandwidths due to the addition of HTTP
headers, the protocol can be used in
environments where security measures would
block RTMP.
  RTMP (secure) – This protocol uses a secure SSL
connection using HTTPs
 RTMP (Encrypted) - RTMP with encryption is a
new encrypted protocol for securing the stream
data between server and client. It is lightweight
then SSL.
 RTMP (Tunnel encrypted) –It is an enhance
version which encrypt the communication
channel over HTTP. The key benefits over SSL
(RTMPS) are performance, ease of
implementation, and limited impact on server
capacity.
 RTMP (Real-time media flow control) – this is
based on the user datagram protocol. It supports
sending data from one flash player to another
directly without sending it to the server; however
a server side connection will always be required
to establish a connection between end user.
The handshake can be divided into four stages. Initially
both server and client are initialized and the protocol
version is sent during this stage. After the uninitialized
state both server and client sent the version of RTMP to
each other and are now in the version state. After the
version state both client and server send
acknowledgment to each other and thus handshake has
been done and can exchange messages.
B. Chunking
Chunking allows large messages to be broken into
multiple small messages. In addition it also allows small
messages to be sent over less overhead. Each chunk
carries message of one type of one stream. While
transmitting each chunk must be sent in full before the
next at the receiving end chunks are assembled into
message based on the chunk id. The figure below
shows RTMP chunk format.

IV. FORMAT OF MESSAGE

RTMP message format is divided into multiple chunks. Basic Header Chunk header Time stamp Chunk Data
These chunks are useful for multiplexing and de
multiplexing at the receiving side. The message format
contains the following fields.
Each chunk consists of a header and data the header
 Time stamp
itself is broken down into three parts.
 Length
 Type ID V. TYPES OF MESSAGES
 Stream ID Different types of messages are exchanged between
A. Handshake client and server to communicate with each other on
the network. These messages can be of any type video
An RTMP handshake is unlike the rest of the
messages, audio messages, shared objects or command
protocols. The connection begins with three static size
messages.
chunks rather than a variable size chunks. The client
that initiate the connection and the server send the A. Command messages
same type of chunks to each other in order to initiate Command messages carry the encoded commands
the connection. between server and client. These messages consist of
command name, transection id and command objects
Flash Server Flash Player that contains parameters about the command type.

Uninitailzed B. Data messages

sent Client and server send these messages in order to
Version sent exchange metadata with peers. These messages include
details about the data like creation time, duration and
Ack sent so on.
C. Shared Object messages
Handshake done
These types of messages are shared across multiple
clients and instances. Each flash shared object can
contains multiple events.
Fig: 2 RTMP handshakes divided into multiple stages
D. video messages
These messages contains actual video data .The
client and the server send these messages to send
video data to peers.t
These messages are big in size and it can delay the
other messages so it has been assigned the lowest
priority.
E. Audio messages
The client and server send these messages for
sending audio data to the peers. To avoid the delay for
other messages these messages has assigned the
lowest priority as these messages are bigger in size.
F. aggregate messages
An aggregate message is a single message that can
contains a list of sub messages. The message type value
of 22 is reserved for aggregate messages.
G. User control messages
This client and the server send these messages to
inform the peers about the user control messages.
Some of the user control event types.
VI. TYPES OF COMMANDS
The client and the server send command messages
that consist of command name and transection ID. For
example the sender send the connect command and
the receiver response back with same transection ID.
The following commands are mostly used for various
commands.
A. NetConnection command
This command provides a two way connection
between server and client. In addition it also provides
synchronization between server and client.
Flash Server Flash Player
Handshake done
Connect
Window Ack size
Set bandwith
User control
Result connect
Fig: 2 RTMP message flow in the connect command
The client send the connect command to the server to
request connection to a server application. The server
responds back with a window acknowledgment size
message which contains the information about window
buffer size, bandwidth and user control.
These two objects are used for a higher level
representation of connection and the channel over
which audio, video and other data are sent.
B. CreateStreams
The Flash client sends this command to the server to
create a logical connection for communication. For
example to publish audio or video data on the net
CreateStream command is used
C. NetStreams
This command defines the channel through which audio
and video messages can be sent. This object can
support multiple streams. The following commands can
be sent over channel.
 Play, play2
 deleteStream ,closeStream
 receiveAudio ,receiveVideo
VII. CLIENT SOFTWARE
The most commonly RTMP client is a web browser
plugin Adobe Flash player which support audio and
video playback. Gnash is an open source replacement
for the Macromedia Flash Player on the Linux platform,
intends to support RTMP streaming for Linux. In
addition to that RTMP client software can also support
partial open source media player XMBC. RTMP dump is
an open source command line tool designed to
playback the video or to save the video to a disk.
VIII. SERVER SOFTWARE
There are many RTMP implemented servers which
can be used for real-time or on demand video
streaming. The most commonly used RTMP servers are:
 Adobe Flash Media Server
 Adobe LiveCycle Data services
 Amazon S3 and Cloud Front
 Red5 open source media server
 Wowza Media Server
IX. HTTP VS. RTMP
HTTP (hypertext transfer protocol) refers to the References
protocol used to deliver web pages and images across
the Internet worldwide. HTTP is an open standard [1] RTMP streaming
protocol. HTTP is a “stateless” protocol; think of it as an http://www.longtailvideo.com/support/jw-
airline ticket to anywhere. HTTP can be delivered by a player/jw-player-for-flash-v5/12535/video-
variety of web servers, both commercial and open delivery-rtmp-streaming .
source. Some of the basic difference between RTMP [2] RTMP Documentation
and Http has shown in the table below. http://dev.rtmpy.org/wiki/RTMP#RTMPS
[3] RTMP introduction Wikipedia
HTTP RTMP http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Real_Time_Messagin
Server component Open Specialized g_Protocol
Security Basic Enhanced [4] RTMP streaming
Cashing Native Specialized http://www.eyepartner.com/streaming-
Multicast support NA supported software/rtmp-streaming/: http://www.ieee.org/
Firewall (port) No restriction Some restriction [5] HTTP vs. RTMP http://www.gpl-
Player interactivity Basic Extensive uk.co.uk/files/inlet_streaming_httpvsrtmp.pdf

RTMP refers to the proprietary protocol developed by

Adobe Systems for streaming audio, video and data
over the Internet, between a Flash player and a Flash
Media Server. RTMP is defined as a stateful protocol,
which means that from the first time a client connects
until the time it disconnects, the streaming server keeps
track of the client’s actions. [5]

X. CONCLUSION
In this report we introduced in details how the RTMP
protocol works, what are its different classifications,
how its message format look like and what are the
functions of some of its important command messages.
In addition to that we also described some of the basic
difference between RTMP and HTTP. Our analyses show
that RTMP is currently the most efficient protocol for
delivering videos on the internet among competing
technologies of media delivery. In addition to that
RTMP offers several advantages over regular HTTP
video download. RTMP can do live streaming - people
can watch your video while it is being recorded, RTMP
provide much more enhance functionality for streaming
and on demand media, furthermore video delivered
over RTMP are much more secure than videos delivered
over regular HTTP.