No NVR? No problem.

First, the one thing that makes all of this work

Screen2ipcam does not use a private protocol. Once it is running, your PC publishes a normal RTSP video stream and answers ONVIF discovery, exactly like a camera you would buy in a shop. That means anything that can open an IP camera can open your screen — a media player, free recording software, a NAS, a phone app, or a Raspberry Pi.

Your stream address looks like this (the app shows the exact one in the Status tab):

Replace 192.168.1.64 with the address shown in the app. Both devices must be on the same local network.

Five ways to watch it without an NVR

Option A: Connect Using ONVIF

Agent DVR is free, runs on Windows, macOS, Linux and the Raspberry Pi, and records to disk — so it is the closest thing to a real NVR without buying one. Below is the whole process, screen by screen. It takes about two minutes.

1. Open Agent DVR and start a view

   Open Agent DVR in your browser. On a fresh install you will see Click to get started. Click the empty area, or press Edit View in the toolbar at the bottom.

   

2. Add a device to the grid

   The Configure View panel opens. Click the + in the corner of the grid slot — or click the empty slot itself.

   

3. Choose New Device

   A Grid Slot panel appears with an Excluded / Included list. Press the orange New Device button.

   

4. Pick ONVIF

   From the device-type list choose ONVIF. This is the important choice: with ONVIF, Agent DVR asks the PC what streams it offers instead of you typing addresses by hand.

   

5. Set the recording options

   The Configure panel offers Alerts, Record on Detect, Resize and Record Raw. For a PC screen, Record Raw is a good default — it saves CPU because the video is stored exactly as Screen2ipcam sends it. Press OK.

   

6. Open the ONVIF configuration

   You now see the camera’s General settings with Source Type: ONVIF. Click the small gear button next to it to configure the source.

   

7. Let it find Screen2ipcam

   This is the step that does the real work. Agent DVR lists every ONVIF device it can see on the network — and Screen2ipcam appears there by itself, right next to the real cameras. Click it, then press Get Video URLs.

   You should see Options Found: 2 and both streams filled in:

   Live URL 1920x1080 rtsp://192.168.1.206:554/screenlive Record URL 640x360 rtsp://192.168.1.206:554/screensub

   Watch in full resolution, record the small one — that combination gives a sharp live picture while using a fraction of the disk. If you turned on Secure stream with password inside Screen2ipcam, put the same username and password here; otherwise the two fields can stay empty.

   

8. Switch the camera on

   Back on the General tab, flip the toggle at the top to On, give the camera a name you will recognise — Cashier PC, Reception screen — and press OK.

   

9. Press Power and watch

   The camera tile appears in the grid. Press Power and the PC screen goes live — and from this moment Agent DVR records it exactly like any other camera.

   

The result

Two machines on the same network, viewed and recorded together in Agent DVR

Run through the nine steps again on the second PC and it lands in the next tile. From here on, both screens live in the same timeline as the rest of your cameras.

Option B: Connect Using RTSP

If you only want to see the screen and not record it, VLC is a 30-second check and a good way to prove everything works before setting up a recorder.

1. Open the network stream dialog

   In VLC, choose Media → Open Network Stream — or just press Ctrl + N.

   

2. Type the RTSP address

   On the Network tab, enter the address of the PC that is running Screen2ipcam and press Play:

   rtsp://YOUR-PC-IP:554/screenlive

   Use /screenlive for the full-quality main stream, or /screensub for the lighter sub stream. No username or password is needed unless you switched on Secure stream with password inside Screen2ipcam.

   

3. The screen appears

   That is the whole test. If VLC plays it, any ONVIF or RTSP recorder on the same network will too — the picture you are looking at is exactly the stream an NVR would record.

   

Which one should you pick?

Screen2ipcam behaves the same in every row — it is a standard camera to all of them. The only thing that changes is what you watch it with.

Three things worth knowing before you start

Both devices must be on the same network

The viewer and the PC running Screen2ipcam need to see each other — same router, same Wi-Fi or same wired network. Watching from another building needs a VPN or a port forward, which is a separate subject and worth doing carefully.

Two ports matter

If a firewall is in the way, allow the viewer to reach the PC on 554 (RTSP) and, if you use auto-discovery, 8000 (ONVIF). Port 8080 is only the settings panel — viewers never need it.

Recording the sub stream saves a lot of disk

Screen2ipcam publishes a smaller second stream. A screen that barely changes costs very little to record, and choosing the sub stream cuts it further — useful on a Raspberry Pi or an older NAS.

Verified and tested with:

Blue Iris XMEye VLC Profile S

Try it before you decide

The trial is the full program for 14 days. Install it, open VLC on any other computer, and see your screen appear. That takes about two minutes and costs nothing — and it tells you far more than any comparison table.