Lower Stream Delay or Fix Black Live Stream with Poseidon over Websocket

Enabling Poseidon over Websocket is good for lowering stream delay on H.264 and H.265 streams without encoding.

By : Moe Alam

Date Added : Fri Jul 26 2024 20:28:14 GMT+0000 (Coordinated Universal Time)
Last Updated : Fri Sep 19 2025 14:22:29 GMT+0000 (Coordinated Universal Time)

Shoutout to Kevin Godell for making this stream method and offering it to Shinobi! Find out more about Kevin on our Heroes page.

How to enable Poseidon over Websocket

  1. Open your Shinobi dashboard and find the Monitor you wish to edit.
  2. Open the Monitor Settings for the desired Monitor and set Simple to Advanced in the bottom right corner of the Monitor Settings.
  3. Select "Stream" on the left side menu to scroll to the "Stream" section.
  4. Set the Stream Type to "Poseidon".
  5. Below a new field will appear (Advanced only) and it will be set to HTTP. Change it to Websocket.
  6. Press Save.

Why do this?

  • Works with H.265 and H.264 Stream data without encoding.
  • Plays H.265 in the web browser.
  • Low Stream Delay : Lowest latency out of all the methods offered.
  • Great for use with PTZ cameras to view the control inputs almost immediately.

Why is Poseidon not the default Stream Type?

While Poseidon meets the performance criteria with finesse, some devices fail to operate this stream method when their network connection is not reliable. We estimate that a large number of users use WiFi on their client device or connect remotely because we did for a time have Poseidon as the default. Majority of the users that requested support were in similar scenarios.

With that being the case we chose to have HLS as the default because it has the highest compatibility in simply showing the stream. The only thing that keeps HLS from being great is the delay/lagging of the stream.

H.265/HEVC Not Playing on Windows

The way to fix this is slightly outside of Shinobi's control. If you are not on Windows Pro version you may need to install a separate codec. You need to install the codec from the Microsoft Store to allow it to work on Windows. This is not a codec vended by us, it is vended by Microsoft. In Canada this codec costs $1.29. You can find the codec in the link below.

https://apps.microsoft.com/detail/9nmzlz57r3t7

Note : this codec only works with the Poseidon Stream Type, HLS will still most likely be unaffected even when installing this.