I bought a SD492225T-HN from @EMPIRETECANDY. It arrived yesterday and I got it up and running quickly. I'm very pleased with the camera. I have questions about software though that I am hoping to get some help with.
For posterity, I got network out to this camera using a Powerline Networking adapter to an external electrical outlet. I then use a POE injector and run the CAT6 cable over to the cam. This is all contained in a waterproof electrical junction box in which I cut out openings for the outlet (rear), CAT6 (bottom). The box is weather-stripped, caulked and located under an eave.
Powerline Network Adapter: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01H74VKZU/
POE 802.3AT injector: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00EUAL55U
Electrical Junction Box: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B06XSMK61Q
The purpose of this camera is primarily to watch wildlife and keep an eye on my kids when they are outside. The security aspect is nice too, and I will be using my QNAP NAS with the built-in surveillance stations software to record the sub-stream.
My backyard is roughly 500 feet deep. Every night we are visited by foxes, coyotes, deer and many other creatures. I'm thrilled that the IR on this camera lit up my entire yard, I can make out details all the way to the back. The main kid's play area is a couple hundred feet away from the house. It's far enough away that you can't quite make out with your eye which kid is out there, and if they are laughing and having a great time or crying / injured.
My desire is to find an app that I can use from my Mac and iPhone to quickly:
The web interface on the camera is nice, but to get to it you need to open a browser, then a bookmark and finally login at a prompt. Also I find it odd that the main "Live" screen only has numbered presets, why wouldn't the names be exposed there? Ideally I'd just have an app that stores my credentials and I can get to the stream and controls in one click.
It took me a couple hours to figure out the RTSP stream endpoints. Here is what I found:
Main Stream:
Sub Stream
With that I can view the streams on any device. I have VLC on all my devices and have bookmarked the network stream for quick viewing. This doesn't give me PTZ control, presets or (easy) video recording though.
"IP Camera Viewer 2" is the best Mac app I've found so far. I entered the camera IP and it probed it to identify 20+ drivers that could work. The Dahua ONVIF driver works best. It lets me view either stream, gives me PTZ control, but the named presets do not show up. I couldn't find any driver that showed the presets, I think the app just doesn't support it. I'm curious if presets are part of the ONVIF protocol or something proprietary to Dahua?
"LiveCams Pro" is the best iOS app I've found so far. If I set up the camera under the ONVIF profile the named presets show up. However they work exactly once and after choosing one the list goes empty. PTZ doesn't work under that profile either. If I set up the camera under the "Dahua SD Series" profile I get choice of streams, PTZ control and numbered presets (no names, annoyingly). My biggest gripe with this app is the stream continues running in the background, so I have to explicitly quit the app every time I'm done using it.
I tried the (official?) "iDMSS Lite" app, but do not like it. It was easy enough to get the camera setup, but the UI is non-intuitive, it keeps trying to force me into a grid view, and I cannot find presets anywhere in the app. However it does expose more controls (e.g. focus, iris) than other apps.
Per this thread (Dahua APP LeChange) it seems that iDMSS is on its way out anyways, to be replaced by "Lechange". I gave this a try but it seems to want the camera to be connected to their cloud service. Setup is nice (scan a QR code from the camera's web interface), but I am not willing to trust anyone else with my data. I could see this being useful to less-technically-inclined persons who are willing to make the tradeoff of losing some amount of control of their data, and the inevitability of a breach at Lechange in exchange for ease of use and setup.
I hope this thread helps others, and I hope others have some good suggestions of apps for me to try.
Thanks!
For posterity, I got network out to this camera using a Powerline Networking adapter to an external electrical outlet. I then use a POE injector and run the CAT6 cable over to the cam. This is all contained in a waterproof electrical junction box in which I cut out openings for the outlet (rear), CAT6 (bottom). The box is weather-stripped, caulked and located under an eave.
Powerline Network Adapter: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01H74VKZU/
POE 802.3AT injector: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00EUAL55U
Electrical Junction Box: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B06XSMK61Q
The purpose of this camera is primarily to watch wildlife and keep an eye on my kids when they are outside. The security aspect is nice too, and I will be using my QNAP NAS with the built-in surveillance stations software to record the sub-stream.
My backyard is roughly 500 feet deep. Every night we are visited by foxes, coyotes, deer and many other creatures. I'm thrilled that the IR on this camera lit up my entire yard, I can make out details all the way to the back. The main kid's play area is a couple hundred feet away from the house. It's far enough away that you can't quite make out with your eye which kid is out there, and if they are laughing and having a great time or crying / injured.
My desire is to find an app that I can use from my Mac and iPhone to quickly:
- View the main stream
- Control PTZ
- Go to named presets
- Capture video recording
The web interface on the camera is nice, but to get to it you need to open a browser, then a bookmark and finally login at a prompt. Also I find it odd that the main "Live" screen only has numbered presets, why wouldn't the names be exposed there? Ideally I'd just have an app that stores my credentials and I can get to the stream and controls in one click.
It took me a couple hours to figure out the RTSP stream endpoints. Here is what I found:
Main Stream:
Code:
rtsp://user:pass@IP/live
rtsp://user:pass@IP:554/cam/realmonitor?channel=1&subtype=0Sub Stream
Code:
rtsp://user:pass@IP:554/cam/realmonitor?channel=1&subtype=1With that I can view the streams on any device. I have VLC on all my devices and have bookmarked the network stream for quick viewing. This doesn't give me PTZ control, presets or (easy) video recording though.
"IP Camera Viewer 2" is the best Mac app I've found so far. I entered the camera IP and it probed it to identify 20+ drivers that could work. The Dahua ONVIF driver works best. It lets me view either stream, gives me PTZ control, but the named presets do not show up. I couldn't find any driver that showed the presets, I think the app just doesn't support it. I'm curious if presets are part of the ONVIF protocol or something proprietary to Dahua?
"LiveCams Pro" is the best iOS app I've found so far. If I set up the camera under the ONVIF profile the named presets show up. However they work exactly once and after choosing one the list goes empty. PTZ doesn't work under that profile either. If I set up the camera under the "Dahua SD Series" profile I get choice of streams, PTZ control and numbered presets (no names, annoyingly). My biggest gripe with this app is the stream continues running in the background, so I have to explicitly quit the app every time I'm done using it.
I tried the (official?) "iDMSS Lite" app, but do not like it. It was easy enough to get the camera setup, but the UI is non-intuitive, it keeps trying to force me into a grid view, and I cannot find presets anywhere in the app. However it does expose more controls (e.g. focus, iris) than other apps.
Per this thread (Dahua APP LeChange) it seems that iDMSS is on its way out anyways, to be replaced by "Lechange". I gave this a try but it seems to want the camera to be connected to their cloud service. Setup is nice (scan a QR code from the camera's web interface), but I am not willing to trust anyone else with my data. I could see this being useful to less-technically-inclined persons who are willing to make the tradeoff of losing some amount of control of their data, and the inevitability of a breach at Lechange in exchange for ease of use and setup.
I hope this thread helps others, and I hope others have some good suggestions of apps for me to try.
Thanks!
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