Video streaming and/or updated JPG images

[testshoot 0]

Hello, I have a weather station with a web site for all the weather data. Quite a few of the other weather station owners stream video and/or updated JPG images to their websites.

 

The most popular camera they use is the Panasonic BL-C140A which works fine, but it is only .3mp and has a wide angle lens. I would like a higher resolution image and the ability to replace the lens with one that is 12mm. I know Trendnet makes a 12mm lens version of their camera, but it is more than I wanted to spend.

 

I know a lot of people on here are using some variant of the Dahua 1.3mp camera, like the Q-See model from Costco. I am wondering if the Q-See/Dahua model can perform a similar function.

 

I didn't intend to buy a NVR as I thought the video stream could be viewed on an HTML page directly like it does with the Panasonic, Foscam, and other cameras.

 

It also appears that the Dahua sends out a proprietary format still image you need their player to view?

 

Can someone please clarify if the Dahua camera can have it's output streamed and/or a JPG web displayable image posted?

 

The weather software can FTP an image to the web page if that isn't something the camera can do directly, but I would still want/need a way to display a live video stream if possible.

 

I asked a variant of the question on the networkcameracritic site and was given an URL my browser couldn't view.

 

There are a lot of live streaming web cams all over the net so what I am asking is being done now with existing equipment.

 

I was hoping to find a sub-$300 camera that has or can be changed to 12mm that would allow the video to be live streamed to my web site and/or updated JPG images. I was told the Dahua camera can't do the JPG images and an SDK would need to be used and theoretically a programmer hired to convert the images for web display.

 

I thought what I was trying to do would be easy

 

Thanks for any help getting me from A to Z....

 

Lew

[Kawboy12R 0]

viewtopic.php?f=19&t=34017&p=210152

 

This might help. No mention what format the snapshot was in though. I assume jpeg but might be different.

[shropna 0]

For this solution i will reccomend you Mobotix cameras. I'm doesn like Mobobotix, as a "movie" camera, but its good "still" camera. Also, Mobotix has special antidust coating. I'm use Mobotix cameras in our country road weather stations with high success.

http://www.eismoinfo.lt/en/traffic-map

Select "Cameras" at left side.

[testshoot 0]

http://www.cctvforum.com/viewtopic.php?f=19&t=34017&p=210152

 

This might help. No mention what format the snapshot was in though. I assume jpeg but might be different.

 

Thanks sir, that applied to getting a still image.... I did a web search and found various people with various solutions for various IP cameras such as:

 

http://board.homeseer.com/showthread.php?t=140867 for a Airlink101 AIC250W

 

http://www.cctvcamerapros.com/Embedding-IP-Camera-Web-Page-s/326.htm with a Vivotek IP-V96112

 

http://www.wowza.com/forums/content.php?39-How-to-re-stream-video-from-an-IP-camera-%28RTSP-RTP-re-streaming%29 for streaming with Wowza

 

 

I also found a solution like this:

 

http://www.red5-recorder.com/

 

or this:

 

http://www.click2stream.com/

 

or this:

 

http://www.adobe.com/products/flash-media-encoder.html?PID=5412144

 

I also found this answer:

 

The next option is HTML5; the new

 

Although I have found a lot of answers, I am too much of a noob to know which answers would work with which IP camera products? In other words, I am not familiar enough with the lingo to know which IP cameras put out what kind of output that in turn works with these programs, if that makes sense.

 

It seems like the Dahua 1.3 and 2mp cameras fit my price range, I just don't understand the camera specs and capabilities to determine what if any or all of these solutions would allow the content to be put on my web page.

 

I hope I am not overly simplifying or confusing the issue...

 

Thanks!

[testshoot 0]

Here is a sample of what I am trying to do:

 

http://www.cnyweather.com/backcam.php

 

This is a weather site using the same software as my weather website. He is using a simple D-Link camera. I was hoping a camera like one of the Dahua models could do whatever the D-Link was doing and being able to display the video on my website like this guy is doing on his website.

 

If the Dahua is unable to put out output like the D-Link can in this example, is there another outdoor camera that can operate with a 12mm lens with over 1mp?

 

Thanks

[buellwinkle 0]

You have been a very busy googler.

 

From the choices you provided,

 

Red5 is a known product that will restream RTSP from most IP cameras and restream it as flash. It's open source, meaning free. I tried it once and couldn't get anywhere with it. It requires you do develop code to do what you want in their language. I tried for a few hours and got nowhere, but that doesn't mean you can't do it. It would be cool if you got it working and provided us a primer on how to do it.

 

The Vivotek solution requires you a) have a Vivotek camera, b) all your viewers have Windows and IE.

 

Click2Stream, heck yeah, any re-streaming service is best like ustream.tv and many others. Seems too cheap at $30/mo, but why not. You can try the free version, not sure if they let you embed for that price as it says that only for the $30/mo plan or the $5/mo plan (single user).

 

FMS - Flash Live Video Encoder, the encoder is free, FMS to run it on is $995 for the standard edition, $5K for the pro version, get the pro, you can't go wrong unless well, you want to view the website from an IOS or Android tablet that does not support Flash, just saying. I think everyone will soon throw out their IOS and Android tablets and buy the Microsoft Surface just so they can run Flash, I know it. Too bad Microsoft was the only tablet company that couldn't afford a booth at the CES this year, I guess they didn't think their new products needed explaining.

 

Have you seen the Canon cameras, the Cannon VB-C50i specifically, does all you want, built into the camera. You can embed the video as a java player. Allows people to control the zoom for one minute, pretty nice camera and affordable, well kidding on that last part, but it does what you want. Here's a sample website - http://www.geddys.com/geddycams/videocam/

[goldserve 0]

What's wrong with this article?

 

http://www.bahamasyellowpages.net/articles/dahua-rtsp-stream.asp#0

[testshoot 0]

You have been a very busy googler.

 

Have you seen the Canon cameras, the Cannon VB-C50i specifically, does all you want, built into the camera. You can embed the video as a java player. Allows people to control the zoom for one minute, pretty nice camera and affordable, well kidding on that last part, but it does what you want. Here's a sample website - http://www.geddys.com/geddycams/videocam/

 

Thanks for the review of the options I found when Googling.... The Canon camera doesn't operate within the environment range I live in. It isn't clear what is optical vs. digital zoom, so it might not be optical zoom out to the angle I want. Don't know if it is mandatory, but I don't want to offer any camera controls like that site shows.

 

Thanks for the suggestion!

[testshoot 0]

What's wrong with this article?

 

http://www.bahamasyellowpages.net/articles/dahua-rtsp-stream.asp#0

 

Nothing, just hadn't found it. Thanks a LOT as it gives a lot of options and I am hoping at least one of them will work for me. Now I just need to get a camera

 

Thanks so much!

 

Lew

[TheUberOverLord 0]

Please be aware of one major issue that few people are aware of or talk about.

 

Many if not most IP Cameras have a finite limit on how many formally logged in concurrent connections they will support, at any given moment in time. Some IP Cameras have a maximum limit as small as 4 concurrent formally logged in connections, at one time.

 

It should be noted, that this generally includes any combination of the following, that will count as a formally logged in connection. Copies of the standard IP Camera interface running that comes with the camera, video streams ("Directly from the IP Camera to viewers and/or a streaming service or for recording") and many if not most 3rd party applications for the IP Camera.

 

So, as you can see. In many cases, it's easy to exceed this limit with only personal use, let alone, public access.

 

You can verify this limit and what it is for your IP Camera by creating copies any of the above things that qualify as a formally logged in connection, until your IP Camera refuses to grant you another connection until or unless one of the current connections is dropped.

 

Exceeding this limit can cause you the IP Camera owner to lose access to your IP Camera unless or until one of these connections becomes available.

 

While there are methods to avoid this maximum concurrent connection limit. Few developers/programmers currently, seem to be using them. This can defeat the purpose of making an IP Camera publicly available.

 

Here is an example of a free Interface, that avoids this maximum concurrent connections issue and works with any Internet browser capable device, running on any Operating System that is using any browser:

 

http://foscam.us/forum/free-generic-browser-interface-for-foscam-ip-mjpeg-cameras-t2522.html#p10970

 

Additionally. Most ISP Services have some formal maximum bytes per month limits. So you may wish to make sure you can control that as much as possible to avoid a possible ISP account suspension.

 

The above Interface allows you to throttle the FPS ("Frames Per Second") rate. Of course this may only be required, if the ISP service serving the IP Cameras output does have formal monthly maximum bytes per month limits.

 

Here is a modified example of the above Interface that in real-time calculates how many bytes during a 30 day period would be used if one person was viewing an IP Camera 24/7, during a 30 day period, at a specific FPS rate using a specific video resolution. Just to give you an idea of how many bytes could be used.

 

Please note, if there was more that 1 person viewing the IP Camera 24/7, at all given moments during that 30 day period at that FPS rate and video resolution, then the total would be Total_Bytes * number of concurrent viewers, during that 30 day period of time.

 

http://foscam.us/forum/free-generic-browser-interface-for-foscam-mjpeg-ptz-cameras-t2522-10.html#p11577

 

Don

[buellwinkle 0]

I love the VLC idea, haven't thought about it but if you stream your camera via RTSP to a PC running VLC and it re-streams it as flash, then you can use an emedded video player to play the flash file. I'll have to experiment with it when I have time just for fun, but a quick look at it shows it's doable and cheap and does not restrict your camera since it's only a single stream to your PC. The PC is just running VLC. Not a huge fan of flash but at least people with PCs or Macs with just about any browser can view it.

[dexterash 0]

The elegant solution would be to restream it to HTML5 with fallback to FLASH.

 

This can be easily achieved via ffmpeg.

[testshoot 0]

Please be aware of one major issue that few people are aware of or talk about.

 

Many if not most IP Cameras have a finite limit on how many formally logged in concurrent connections they will support, at any given moment in time. Some IP Cameras have a maximum limit as small as 4 concurrent formally logged in connections, at one time.

Here is an example of a free Interface, that avoids this maximum concurrent connections issue and works with any Internet browser capable device, running on any Operating System that is using any browser:

 

http://foscam.us/forum/free-generic-browser-interface-for-foscam-ip-mjpeg-cameras-t2522.html#p10970

 

Additionally. Most ISP Services have some formal maximum bytes per month limits. So you may wish to make sure you can control that as much as possible to avoid a possible ISP account suspension.

 

The above Interface allows you to throttle the FPS ("Frames Per Second") rate. Of course this may only be required, if the ISP service serving the IP Cameras output does have formal monthly maximum bytes per month limits.

 

Here is a modified example of the above Interface that in real-time calculates how many bytes during a 30 day period would be used if one person was viewing an IP Camera 24/7, during a 30 day period, at a specific FPS rate using a specific video resolution. Just to give you an idea of how many bytes could be used.

 

Please note, if there was more that 1 person viewing the IP Camera 24/7, at all given moments during that 30 day period at that FPS rate and video resolution, then the total would be Total_Bytes * number of concurrent viewers, during that 30 day period of time.

 

http://foscam.us/forum/free-generic-browser-interface-for-foscam-mjpeg-ptz-cameras-t2522-10.html#p11577

 

Don

 

Thanks Don,

 

I had thought about the concurrent user issue but without having given a lot of thought, it seemed to me that the person wasn't viewing the camera feed, but instead was viewing a modified version of the feed. If the camera feed was being passed through a program and being restransmitted to the server, they were viewing the feed from the server copy, not from the camera copy?

 

Regarding bandwidth, I *am* the ISP It is my own account on my own server so that isn't an issue. I am always way below the bandwidth allocated to the server by hundreds of GB.

 

Thanks for the thoughts and the link!

[testshoot 0]

The elegant solution would be to restream it to HTML5 with fallback to FLASH.

 

This can be easily achieved via ffmpeg.

 

The best solution for me would be a method whereas my weather PC could get the feed from the camera and re-transmit it to the server such that the video file was being played from the web site's server which might be what you just said, but how would that be done? I was hoping that the solution at the link provided above:

 

http://www.bahamasyellowpages.net/articles/dahua-rtsp-stream.asp#0

 

Was in effect passing the video stream from the camera through VLC which was then output to a destination, which I assumed could be the web server's web page?

 

Thought this would not only make the stream available on the web server's page, but would also bypass the concurrent user restriction as it was only a single copy of the RSTP feed coming from the camera and the feed being made available on the web server wouldn't have the concurrent restriction?

 

Thanks

[dexterash 0]

That tutorial is a good starting point.

 

First you'll have to figure who will actually send the stream to the client (visitor) - you or the hosting company.

 

Yes, it will bypass the concurrent streams limitation.