I have an Imou Wi-Fi camera whose RTSP address plays perfectly in VLC, yet fails almost every time I open it from Python on my Mac mini (M4, macOS Sonoma). OpenCV throws “no route to host” or simply refuses to connect; calling the stream directly through ffmpeg shows similar connection failures while it works when I do with VLC direct network stream. Credentials and the RTSP URL are definitely correct—I can paste the link into VLC and it stays up for hours—so the problem lies in how OpenCV/FFmpeg are handling the stream on Apple Silicon. Here is what I need: • A concise, working Python example (OpenCV or direct ffmpeg piping) that keeps the stream alive long enough for basic person-detection processing. • Any required ffmpeg flags, OpenCV build options, or Homebrew tweaks specific to ARM/M-series chips. • Clear steps to reproduce the fix on my machine so I can reinstall or move it later without guesswork. If you have already wrestled with RTSP on macOS—or have proven compile flags for OpenCV + ffmpeg that eliminate intermittent drops—your guidance will save me a lot of trial-and-error. Source code, terminal commands, and a short explanation of why the fix works will be the acceptance criteria.