Live video monitoring
Live video monitoring, without giving viewers camera access.
Point Castr at each camera's RTSP URL to watch sites and remote facilities live in any browser. Every feed is recorded and stays locked down.
Built for facilities, construction, tourism, events, integrators, and organizations operating persistent remote camera feeds. Castr streams, records, and delivers those feeds. It is not an alarm or security-response service.
Trusted across professional media, enterprise, and public organizations
Business outcomes
The workflow should create value, not more operational risk.
01Watch from anywhere
Open the live feed in the Castr dashboard or player from any browser. Viewers need no VPN, port forwarding, or camera logins.
02Separate viewers from cameras
Viewers watch in a browser player and never see the camera's address or login, so nobody outside your team can touch camera settings.
03Keep a record
Record feeds in the cloud and move the footage that matters to your video library before the 3-day retention window expires.
Capabilities that matter
Everything a remote camera monitoring workflow needs.
Castr sits between your cameras and your viewers: it pulls the feed, records it, and delivers real-time playback over multi-CDN infrastructure (Akamai, Fastly, CloudFront) with automatic failover and a 99.9% uptime SLA.
RTSP pull
Paste the camera's RTSP URL and Castr pulls the feed on every plan. It just needs a URL it can reach, with nothing extra to run at the site.
RTMP and SRT ingest
Push from an on-site encoder or gateway when you can't open the camera network for a pull, into 40+ global ingest locations.
Real-time remote playback
Watch live in the dashboard or share a browser player link. Viewers never get the camera's address, login, or settings.
Cloud recording
Record up to 72 hours per session with 3-day retention, and move recordings to your library to keep them.
Website embedding
Publish the live camera view on your own website or portal with a standard embed.
Access controls
Password-protect playback on every plan, and add domain and geographic restrictions on Premium and higher.
Need the complete matrix? See capability availability and plan tiers in one place.
Compare plans and capabilities →How to set up live video monitoring
From camera to live view in four steps.
Castr sits between the camera and the viewer. It pulls the feed from the camera, carries it over managed delivery, and plays it back in any browser, so viewers never connect to the camera itself.
Connect the camera
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1. Get the camera's RTSP URL
Most network cameras expose an RTSP stream, and the URL format is in the camera's manual or admin interface. Castr must be able to reach it, so give the camera a public IP, port forward, or DDNS hostname.
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2. Add it as a pull source
Paste the RTSP URL into the Castr dashboard. Castr pulls the feed into the nearest of 40+ ingest locations, with nothing to install at the site.
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3. Or push over RTMP or SRT
If the camera sits behind a network you cannot open, push the feed from an on-site encoder or gateway over RTMP or SRT instead.
Watch, record, share
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4. Watch in real time
The live feed plays in the Castr dashboard and in a shareable player from any browser, with no VPN or port forwarding needed on the viewing side.
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5. Record in the cloud
Cloud recording captures up to 72 hours per session with 3-day retention, so move recordings to your video library to keep them.
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6. Embed and restrict
Embed the live view on your own website, password-protect it on any plan, and add domain or geo restrictions on Premium and higher.
Playback is delivered over multi-CDN infrastructure (Akamai, Fastly, CloudFront) with automatic failover on every plan, backed by a 99.9% uptime SLA and 24/7 support.
Compare recording and stream limits by planLive video monitoring use cases
Where real-time video monitoring earns its keep.
Castr handles the visibility side of video monitoring: watching your own sites live and sharing that view with the people who need it. Teams run it for observation and publishing, not incident response.
Construction and jobsites
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Progress documentation
A remote cam on the site gives owners, lenders, and project teams a construction camera live feed without a site visit, and cloud recordings capture progress between milestones.
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Stakeholder access
Give stakeholders the live construction camera view through a password-protected player link instead of camera credentials, and revoke access when the project phase ends.
Public webcams and tourism
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Destination cams
Embed a beach, resort, harbor, or wildlife camera on your website. Multi-CDN delivery absorbs traffic spikes when the view goes viral.
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Always-on publishing
Castr does the live webcam hosting: run the feed 24/7 as a persistent channel within your plan's limits, with no streaming PC to babysit.
Facilities and venues
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Remote facilities observation
Check production floors, warehouses, or remote installations live from headquarters without VPN access into each site.
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Event and venue views
Give operations teams a live venue overview during events, restricted to your domain so the feed never leaks.
If you need motion detection, AI analytics, or alarm response, pair Castr with a dedicated security system. Castr covers the streaming, recording, and viewing side.
Seen enough to test it? Start a 7-day trial with no credit card, or talk through your exact setup first.
Operator fit
Designed for recurring, accountable video work.
Operational complexity matters more than company size. The strongest fit is a team with a named owner, a repeatable schedule, and a real consequence if delivery fails.
Review your workflow with CastrStrong qualification signals
- Construction progress cameras
- Tourism and public webcams
- Remote facilities observation
- Venue and event cameras
Switching to Castr
Move your camera feeds to Castr without going dark.
You do not have to cut over blind. Run Castr in parallel with your current provider while you test, and let our video team confirm the fit before anything switches.
Run in parallel
Point Castr at one camera's RTSP feed while your current setup keeps running. Nothing changes for your viewers or your site until you swap the embed.
Map the workflow
Our video team reviews your ingest, player embeds, video library, security, and monetization setup, then confirms plan fit for your concurrency and destinations.
Cut over with support
Switch your embeds and viewer links camera by camera when you are confident, with 24/7 human support on hand while the feeds move.
Build the complete workflow
Connect this capability to the rest of your operation.
Questions before you choose
Evaluate the workflow with confidence.
Feature and plan availability changes by tier. Use the full matrix for comparison, or let our team validate a complex setup.
What is live video monitoring?
Live video monitoring, also called remote video monitoring, means watching camera feeds in real time from somewhere other than the camera site. With Castr, you point the platform at a camera's RTSP feed, then watch it live from any browser, record it in the cloud, and embed it on a website. Viewers never connect to the camera itself.
Is Castr a security or alarm monitoring service?
No. Castr streams, records, and delivers your camera feeds. It does not provide motion detection, AI analytics, guard response, or alarm dispatch. If you need a monitoring station that responds to incidents, you need a security provider. If you need to watch and share live camera feeds, Castr does that.
How do I watch my camera remotely?
Add the camera's RTSP URL in the Castr dashboard. Castr needs to be able to reach that URL via a public IP, port forward, or DDNS hostname. It pulls the feed into its nearest ingest location and plays it back in the dashboard or through a shareable player link, so a remote cam is viewable from any browser and viewers never need VPN or camera access. If you can't open the camera network, push the feed from an on-site encoder or gateway over RTMP or SRT instead.
Can I play an RTSP stream in a browser?
Not directly. Browsers have no native RTSP support, which is why a camera feed needs a service in the middle. Castr acts as an RTSP web viewer you never install: it pulls the camera's RTSP stream, converts it for browser playback, and plays it in the dashboard or an embeddable player. Anyone with the player link can play the RTSP stream in a browser, with no plugin or desktop viewer app.
Can every camera connect?
Any camera that outputs RTSP can be pulled directly, and cameras or gateways that push RTMP or SRT also connect. Validate the device, network, and authentication details before you deploy.
How long are recordings kept?
Cloud recording captures up to 72 hours per session and keeps recordings for 3 days. Move a recording to your video library to keep it permanently and share or embed it like any hosted video.
Can feeds run continuously?
Yes. Persistent 24/7 camera feeds are a normal Castr workload and streams have no time limit. The practical cap is your plan's monthly bandwidth: 200 GB on Starter, 500 GB on Standard, and more on higher tiers. Size continuous multi-camera setups accordingly.
How much does live video monitoring cost?
Castr plans start at $19.99 per month for 2 streams and 200 GB of monthly bandwidth, and every tier includes RTSP ingest, cloud recording, website embedding, and password-protected playback. A 7-day trial with no credit card required lets you test your own cameras first. For continuous multi-camera monitoring, bandwidth is the number to size, so talk to the Castr team about matching a plan to your camera count and viewing hours.
Move from evaluation to a working broadcast
Map Castr to the workflow your team runs today.
Discuss protocols, concurrency, destinations, bandwidth, storage, security, monetization, migration, and support with a video expert.