Directly paste into browser address bar. But note: most modern browsers have removed native MJPEG support for security reasons (except older Firefox/Chrome versions). Use an <img> tag with refresh instead?
Better: Use a simple HTML page with the image tag refreshing every ~100ms – but that’s not true streaming. Instead, use JavaScript fetch to parse multipart.
Simplest legacy way (works in old browsers): axis cgi mjpg
<img src="http://192.168.1.100/axis-cgi/mjpg/video.cgi?resolution=640x480">
<img src="http://192.168.1.10/axis-cgi/mjpg/video.cgi?resolution=800x600&compression=30"
style="border: 1px solid black;"
onerror="this.src='data:image/svg+xml,...'"
alt="Axis Camera Stream">
Note: Modern browsers restrict mixed content (HTTP on HTTPS pages) and may require the camera to support CORS.
Axis cameras support multiple authentication methods for CGI access: Directly paste into browser address bar
Basic Authentication:
GET /axis-cgi/mjpg/video.cgi?resolution=640x480 HTTP/1.1
Host: 192.168.1.10
Authorization: Basic base64(username:password)
Digest Authentication: More secure, nonce-based challenge-response. <img src="http://192
Session-based: Using axis-cgi/login.cgi to obtain a session cookie.
Sometimes you don’t need a full stream; you just need a single JPEG frame:
http://<camera-ip>/axis-cgi/jpg/image.cgi?camera=1&resolution=1024x768
This is not technically "MJPG" (since it lacks the "Motion"), but it is part of the same CGI family and often used in conjunction with MJPG for lazy-loading or thumbnail generation.
One major hurdle when working with axis cgi mjpg is authentication. Modern Axis cameras require digest or basic authentication. When you access the MJPG URL directly, you will likely get a 401 Unauthorized error.