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CCTV Help


forcebwithu

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One of my old D-Link IP security cameras has bit the dust and I expect the others are nearing the end of their useful life.

I bought the Tapo C210 camera to try out as a replacement, but can not get either the D-ViewCam app that I use for the D-Link cameras, or the iSpy open source security camera app to recognize the C210.

I know the camera and its settings are fine as I was able to view what the camera is seeing using the VLC player and the RTSP protocol. When I plug the identical URL into iSpy I get nothing.

I'm a rank novice when it comes to CCTV's and setting up these apps. With D-ViewCam it was somewhat plug 'n play since the app and cameras were from the same company.

From what I read I could buy an NVR to handle the video feeds, but I already have enough computers in my small home office, I don't really want another one if I can avoid it. Thus my looking into a software solution that can run on my existing Windows laptops.

Any suggestions, pointers and help would be most welcome. If it does happen the best and easiest solution is the NVR route, recommendations on brand and model would be also welcome. My current security system is five cameras, so the solution doesn't need to accommodate more than say eight channels.

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Here's the tp-link instructions if you haven't already seen them.

https://www.tp-link.com/en/support/faq/2680/

Windows firewall issue? Turn off and see if that works. Remember to turn it back on afterwards.

Is camera and PC on the same subnet? Does it need to be?

I only buy cameras that either come with their own application and/or can be viewed with a web browser. And they must come with the ability to save images and recordings to a local FTP server. Unfortunately getting harder and harder to find.

 

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9 minutes ago, fygjam said:

Here's the tp-link instructions if you haven't already seen them.

https://www.tp-link.com/en/support/faq/2680/

Windows firewall issue? Turn off and see if that works. Remember to turn it back on afterwards.

Is camera and PC on the same subnet? Does it need to be?

I only buy cameras that either come with their own application and/or can be viewed with a web browser. And they must come with the ability to save images and recordings to a local FTP server. Unfortunately getting harder and harder to find.

 

Thanks for the link. One I had found before.

Thought it might be a firewall issue, but since I could view the live stream from VLC ruled that out.

And, drum roll, ta da, figured out just now what was wrong...

As I was writing this post it occurred to me it could be an extension in Chrome that was the source of the problem. So tried Edge as a quick test and was surprised to see my ugly mug staring back at me.

Had a look in Chrome's extension manager and there was one in particular I had forgotten I installed a long time ago that stood out, "Disable HTML5 Autoplay".  Turned that extension off, refreshed the iSpy tab, and voilà Chrome now displays the live stream.

Quite the satisfying feeling when a particularly difficult computer issue is resolved.

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I see one negative with iSpy. Even though I have only five camera feeds, if I up the framerate to more than 10 FPS I get a max. CPU usage every few seconds. Chrome has too much overhead to support the iSpy app so will have to look for a dedicated app that runs on Windows.

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7 minutes ago, forcebwithu said:

I see one negative with iSpy. Even though I have only five camera feeds, if I up the framerate to more than 10 FPS I get a max. CPU usage every few seconds. Chrome has too much overhead to support the iSpy app so will have to look for a dedicated app that runs on Windows.

Blue Iris is meant to be the bee's knees but you need some serious CPU horsepower to run it so I've been told.

I use a dedicated Intel NUC (mini PC) to capture recordings and snapshots and an Android app, tinyCam, running on an old Android TV box for the live display.

 

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On 1/17/2023 at 7:58 AM, fygjam said:

Blue Iris is meant to be the bee's knees but you need some serious CPU horsepower to run it so I've been told.

I use a dedicated Intel NUC (mini PC) to capture recordings and snapshots and an Android app, tinyCam, running on an old Android TV box for the live display.

I'm giving Blue Iris v5 a try. A couple of my D-Link 5020L cameras had no problem with setting up the connection on BI, but the 5000L and 6045L no joy.

I'm also having problems getting the connection to work for the new TP-Link C210 in BI. That one surprises me as it's ONVIF compliant and figured that would be the easiest one to set up and connect to.

No problems with getting any of the above to work in iSpy, but BI is giving me fits.

Online help hasn't been much help. Wondering now if some camera models are not supported by BI.

Have you run across camera models that are not compatible with the security apps you've used?

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1 hour ago, forcebwithu said:

I'm giving Blue Iris v5 a try. A couple of my D-Link 5020L cameras had no problem with setting up the connection on BI, but the 5000L and 6045L no joy.

I'm also having problems getting the connection to work for the new TP-Link C210 in BI. That one surprises me as it's ONVIF compliant and figured that would be the easiest one to set up and connect to.

No problems with getting any of the above to work in iSpy, but BI is giving me fits.

Online help hasn't been much help. Wondering now if some camera models are not supported by BI.

Have you run across camera models that are not compatible with the security apps you've used?

My setup is probably a bit different to most. I don't like/trust streaming my data across the internet so I only go with cameras where I can confine things to my home network. As such, I have my own FTP server where the cameras can upload recordings and snapshots of events. I also have a static IP address from my ISP and a gatekeeper machine so I can log onto my home network from anywhere and checkout any alerts.

My current crop of cameras, noname brand from China, can be configured and viewed from either a web browser or their own proprietary software, both Windows and Android.

When I was a noob my first lot of cameras were Foscam knockoffs and at the time the tinyCam android app or Blue Iris Windows app were meant to be the best. i.e. supported the largest range of cameras. Blue Iris was also the most flexible, allowing one to define multiple "sensitive" areas within a view for triggering events. My current lot are meant to detect "humanoids" but they're hit and miss so I go with whole of view and put up with false alerts from waving tree branches on windy days.

Strange the problems you are having with the D-link devices. Normally stuff from the same manufacturer is bug for bug compatible.

As the old chief said

 

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  • 4 weeks later...

I now have most of new security cameras up and running. Gave up on the old D-Links and went with all TP-Link equipment. Also bit the bullet and bought the TP-Link NVR and installed a 2TB HD to manage and record the video feeds.

Over the past week got all the equipment configured and running in my office. Glad I did it that way as there was a learning curve to getting the cameras to talk to the NVR and the Tapo mobile app. That done spent the afternoon today mounting four of the six cameras in my system.

Happy with the result as the resolution is better and a couple of the cameras have an LED spotlight feature to turn night into day.

Looking now at the main gate camera and I see I'm going to have to bust Happy for knocking over the styrofoam planter and biting a few chunks out of it for good measure. Happy won't be able to deny he's the culprit as I can now playback the record of him misbehaving. :default_biggrin:

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6 hours ago, forcebwithu said:

I now have most of new security cameras up and running. Gave up on the old D-Links and went with all TP-Link equipment. Also bit the bullet and bought the TP-Link NVR and installed a 2TB HD to manage and record the video feeds.

Over the past week got all the equipment configured and running in my office. Glad I did it that way as there was a learning curve to getting the cameras to talk to the NVR and the Tapo mobile app. That done spent the afternoon today mounting four of the six cameras in my system.

Happy with the result as the resolution is better and a couple of the cameras have an LED spotlight feature to turn night into day.

Looking now at the main gate camera and I see I'm going to have to bust Happy for knocking over the styrofoam planter and biting a few chunks out of it for good measure. Happy won't be able to deny he's the culprit as I can now playback the record of him misbehaving. :default_biggrin:

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Good thread from my personal perspective. I have zero experience with CCTV cameras. I just bought 4 of them for the new house from Lazada. I consider these to be moderately priced. I chose them off of a recommendation list from a friend who uses CCTV to monitor his home and businesses.

Screenshot 2023-02-12 002405.png

I will have our Thai Guy home technician do the installs as my 73 year old legs are nowhere near to being qualified enough for the required ladder time in order to properly place them. More later.

Edited by ChiFlyer
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These are the cameras I went with. C210 for indoors rooms, C320WS for fixed outdoor views, and the C540W for an outdoor view of the front door with pan/tilt and a bunch of AI motion/person/line crossing detection options that I'll probably never use.

The only one of the lot that uses PoE (Power over Ethernet) is the C540W. Of course to take advantage of that I had to buy a switch that supports PoE, another expense.

With the exception of two C210's all the other cameras are wired. Perhaps technology has improved, but the D-Links I bought years ago I had to set the FPS low so as to not exceed the available bandwidth of the wireless router. When I discovered that I bit the bullet and strung ethernet cable to all the cameras.

The only reason the C210's aren't wired is I discovered after buying them they don't support an ethernet connection. It appears though with only the two wireless cameras on the network the available bandwidth can accommodate them.

While all the cameras have a slot for SD cards, I'm not using that feature. Instead I use an NVR to record the camera feeds. I've no idea how many days of recording I can get on a 2TB drive, but whatever it is it'll be fine as I'll probably never have a need to playback anything.

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13 minutes ago, thegrogmonster said:

Can I ask why you need/want to install CCTV cameras around your house. Did you have a break in?

There was a rash of break ins on our soi about ten years ago. One of them was my house. Fortunately the thief wasn't very smart and grabbed an old, outdated laptop and missed the expensive, relatively new one sitting in a docking station behind a monitor on another desk. What pissed me off almost as much as being the victim of break in is the thief also stole an expensive hydration backpack to carry his loot in. That's when I installed the cameras, more as deterrent to future would be thief's.

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8 minutes ago, forcebwithu said:

There was a rash of break ins on our soi about ten years ago. One of them was my house. Fortunately the thief wasn't very smart and grabbed an old, outdated laptop and missed the expensive, relatively new one sitting in a docking station behind a monitor on another desk. What pissed me off almost as much as being the victim of break in is the thief also stole an expensive hydration backpack to carry his loot in. That's when I installed the cameras, more as deterrent to future would be thief's.

Thanks for letting me know.

If the missus decides to build on our land out at the lake I imagine we wouuld need to install CCTV cameras for security and peace of mind.

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11 hours ago, forcebwithu said:

There was a rash of break ins on our soi about ten years ago. One of them was my house. Fortunately the thief wasn't very smart and grabbed an old, outdated laptop and missed the expensive, relatively new one sitting in a docking station behind a monitor on another desk. What pissed me off almost as much as being the victim of break in is the thief also stole an expensive hydration backpack to carry his loot in. That's when I installed the cameras, more as deterrent to future would be thief's.

I have a friend who with his Thai wife owns a very high end condo (220 sqm beach front) on the South end of Phuket. Their association has pretty decent security and this is a very safe area of Phuket. Still they had a break-in about a year ago or so. They already had CCTV and the police were able to apprehend the thief based upon the images. Unfortunately, the images were not clear enough for a conviction. Still the thief is deeper in the belly of the beast now. This thief was also not very bright and took nothing of consequence before being scared off by my friend.

They upped their system to include security alarms. They have had one or two 3 AM cat break-ins that have woken up half of the complex. I am told that the security system has become better tuned. 

In my our case we have recently purchased a house that is in a very quiet section of Huay Yai. Security for the overall association is very good, but we are on the last soi and I see garbage being thrown out on an access road that runs behind our house. I feel a need to protect against easy access to our property. As has often been said -> you can not stop them, but the more you slow them down the better protected you are. BTW - one camera will be trained on finding out who is tossing their garbage there. Gonna get those bitches.

 

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8 hours ago, ChiFlyer said:

I have a friend who with his Thai wife owns a very high end condo (220 sqm beach front) on the South end of Phuket. Their association has pretty decent security and this is a very safe area of Phuket. Still they had a break-in about a year ago or so. They already had CCTV and the police were able to apprehend the thief based upon the images. Unfortunately, the images were not clear enough for a conviction. Still the thief is deeper in the belly of the beast now. This thief was also not very bright and took nothing of consequence before being scared off by my friend.

They upped their system to include security alarms. They have had one or two 3 AM cat break-ins that have woken up half of the complex. I am told that the security system has become better tuned. 

In my our case we have recently purchased a house that is in a very quiet section of Huay Yai. Security for the overall association is very good, but we are on the last soi and I see garbage being thrown out on an access road that runs behind our house. I feel a need to protect against easy access to our property. As has often been said -> you can not stop them, but the more you slow them down the better protected you are. BTW - one camera will be trained on finding out who is tossing their garbage there. Gonna get those bitches.

This video has some useful information on what type and where to install your cameras.

 

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Seems there may be a minor issue with WiFi bandwidth usage of the cameras. My lady watches streaming video as she works around the house. Of course when she moves about the bandwidth used by the interior WiFi cameras goes up with the result her streaming video freezes for short periods of time. I may end up having to add a second WiFi router for exclusive use of the security cameras.

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1 hour ago, forcebwithu said:

Seems there may be a minor issue with WiFi bandwidth usage of the cameras. My lady watches streaming video as she works around the house. Of course when she moves about the bandwidth used by the interior WiFi cameras goes up with the result her streaming video freezes for short periods of time. I may end up having to add a second WiFi router for exclusive use of the security cameras.

Check the channel usage first. If you and your neighbours are all using the same channel then a second router won't do much good.

For Android, I use Analiti.

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.analiti.fastest.android

All the CCTV cameras I've had use 2.4GHz. Most recent phones and tablets also support 5GHz. See if forcing the RealForce's device to 5GHz makes a difference.

 

Edited by fygjam
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25 minutes ago, fygjam said:

Check the channel usage first. If you and your neighbours are all using the same channel then a second router won't do much good.

For Android, I use Analiti.

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.analiti.fastest.android

Installed the app, but there's a lot of options and data to decipher. Could you tell me a few sentences what I should be looking at and for?

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38 minutes ago, forcebwithu said:

Installed the app, but there's a lot of options and data to decipher. Could you tell me a few sentences what I should be looking at and for?

Open the app.

Select Channels down the bottom of the screen.

Select 2.4GHz towards the top of the screen.

Should show the 2.4GHz channels 1-14 depending upon region. (Some channels aren't available in some regions).

See what the channel utilisation is. Some devices may allow you to force the device onto a particular channel rather than self select in auto mode. Other devices may not.

If there appears to be channel congestion.

Check if 5GHz appears to be any better. You may need to configure a 5GHz access point on your router if you haven't already done so.

 

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42 minutes ago, fygjam said:

Open the app.

Select Channels down the bottom of the screen.

Select 2.4GHz towards the top of the screen.

Should show the 2.4GHz channels 1-14 depending upon region. (Some channels aren't available in some regions).

See what the channel utilisation is. Some devices may allow you to force the device onto a particular channel rather than self select in auto mode. Other devices may not.

If there appears to be channel congestion.

Check if 5GHz appears to be any better. You may need to configure a 5GHz access point on your router if you haven't already done so.

Thanks for the info. Only showing my WiFi router SSID on the channels display, and only across 1-4.

Cameras only work on 2.4GHz.

Told my lady to let me know if the dropouts get into the territory of annoying. Until then I'll leave well enough alone.

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  • 2 months later...
On 2/15/2023 at 8:48 AM, forcebwithu said:

This video has some useful information on what type and where to install your cameras.

 

Another vid by the same guy.

How to setup Blue Iris.

I might give it a go later.

 

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I learned of a downside to a home CCTV system last Thursday. My lady played backed video of me coming downstairs to talk her the night before. The problem was I was buck naked and falling down blind drunk from drinking my way through the last day of Songkran. Not one of my finer moments. Thankfully I didn't teach her how to make a copy of the video and it'll soon be overwritten as the HD space is reused. 

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14 minutes ago, fygjam said:

Another vid by the same guy.

How to setup Blue Iris.

I might give it a go later.

 

I briefly glanced at the video and it looks to have a very good, detailed info on setting up and using Blue Iris.

What did catch my eye is the cost of the software and hardware to come up with a Blue Iris working system. If I got the numbers right it came in at $372 USD (12,700 THB). That's quite a bit higher than the 3,980B I spent for a TP-Link NVR and HD.

Not seeing the advantage of using Blue Iris over an off the shelf NVR system.

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I have gotten a little better at utilizing my cameras. We have been so busy completing the house move, that I have not had much time to configure and get into looking at the data being collected.

Again, I am a novice when it comes to CCTV security systems. I have two types of cameras due to Lazada going out of stock on the first type that I bought. 3 of my 5 cameras are set up through iCam365. These are pointed at locations that I loosely monitor (Car Park, Swimming Pool, and back of the house). For these iCam365 cameras I paid for a Cloud upload that holds the data for 7 days. That costs $20 US a year per camera. I view this data as a safety net in case of a break-in. There are longer retention periods available at higher rates.   

My other two cameras are accessed by an app called Mi Home. This camera type and associated app was recommended by my Thai house worker guy. It is more of an Android type solution and I am an Apple guy. I had some getting started problems. As an example the camera images were inverted on my phone. I had a little time to look into this the other day and found a You Tube video that explained how to fix the problem. Learned a few things about the app in the process. One of these cameras is also intended to be loosely monitored, but the last one is intended for a daily inspection on my part as this one is pointed at the access road where garbage is being dumped.

Looks like there is a laptop Mi Home app that one can upload images to in order to view them in greater clarity and detail. I will probably look into setting that up. Problem with the access road camera is that it is alongside of an open field with a fair amount of vegetation. The wind keeps things moving back there and I record a lot of events. One thing at a time I guess.

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