2 ms·

Regarding camera brands, I would recommend you see my post at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30550975 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30550975 Unfor

Regarding camera brands, I would recommend you see my post at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30550975 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30550975 Unfortunately, many well known brands are actually made by just two different Chinese companies, and are implicated in the subjugation of the Uighur people. Check out the lists that I link to in that message.

eternityforest 5y ago
If it weren't for the subjugation and labor rights issues, I really wouldn't care, but that is a pretty serious issue and seems like there's pretty deep involvement there. PineCube plus a 3DP case would seem to be perfect, but it's not PTZ. What about Reolink? Nobody seems to have anything linking them to the Uighur issue, and they are affordable with good features. Do they support multicast DNS or any kind of discovery, or ONVIF? It's not easy to fond out how well that works just from the internet. Another possibility is the ESP32. There are lots of camera capable modules there, but again no PTZ. This is an important issue and I'm glad you brought it up! One feature I'd like to add to my system is an RTSP server, so it can act as an easy web-configurable firmware for a Pi Zero W 2 or the like to act as a camera itself, or for putting analog cameras on the network with capture cards. I also don't see the Yi cams on the list, I wonder how well those can integrate.
- bradknowles 5y ago
  The issues that I've heard about Reolink have more to do with the equipment just not working well, as opposed to being involved in Uighur suppression. I don't know if Reolink does ONVIF or not, however. And I'm not sure about many other brands. After checking to see if they are a brand owned by HikVision or Dahua, I would check the hardware compatibility lists of software like SecuritySpy (on the Mac) or Blue Iris (on Windows) to see what they say about the camera(s) in question, and also what they recommend.
  - eternityforest 5y ago
    There seems to be vauge rumors about them being bad for some reason, but the reviews all seem good. Maybe they're heavy users of fake reviews. It looks like Huawei has some of the same issues too, but one exec resigned, so maybe things will improve. Xiaomi seems to have slave labor problems too.
    - bradknowles 5y ago
      I've seen mixed reviews. Some say Reolink is good in certain situations, but others say otherwise. I have yet to find what I would consider to be a definitive review of them. I may have to try some out myself to find out.
      - eternityforest 5y ago
        https://www.reddit.com/r/homedefense/comments/8lkzw5/reolink_forcing_their_nvr_even_though_its_onvif/?utm_medium=android_app&utm_source=share https://www.reddit.com/r/homedefense/comments/8lkzw5/reolink... Looks like they do have some degree of ONVIF support. But it seems like some of them use dynamic keyframe intervals and don't send often for my keyframes-only detection trick to work(Unless the motion lasts long enough to have at least 1 keyframe), and people say it also messes up sync with sub-streams, but I've never used substreams and am not sure what the issue is. I assume things like blue iris watch the substream and discard the main stream till they see motion, and they lose all the content in between detection and the next keyframe?
        bradknowles 5y ago
        As I understand it, the typical technique is to capture both streams at once. The high-res stream is just cached locally for a short period of time, unless there is some reason to keep any part of it. The low-res stream is the one that is actively monitored for those things you do want to record. So, you'd need to keep the two streams in sync, and you'd want frequent key frames so that you don't miss anything when you start or stop recording of the high-res stream. That would also make it a lot easier to stitch the 24x7 low-res background stream into the sections of high-res that were also captured.

eternityforest 5y ago

If it weren't for the subjugation and labor rights issues, I really wouldn't care, but that is a pretty serious issue and seems like there's pretty deep involvement there. PineCube plus a 3DP case would seem to be perfect, but it's not PTZ. What about Reolink? Nobody seems to have anything linking them to the Uighur issue, and they are affordable with good features. Do they support multicast DNS or any kind of discovery, or ONVIF? It's not easy to fond out how well that works just from the internet. Another possibility is the ESP32. There are lots of camera capable modules there, but again no PTZ. This is an important issue and I'm glad you brought it up! One feature I'd like to add to my system is an RTSP server, so it can act as an easy web-configurable firmware for a Pi Zero W 2 or the like to act as a camera itself, or for putting analog cameras on the network with capture cards. I also don't see the Yi cams on the list, I wonder how well those can integrate.

bradknowles 5y ago
The issues that I've heard about Reolink have more to do with the equipment just not working well, as opposed to being involved in Uighur suppression. I don't know if Reolink does ONVIF or not, however. And I'm not sure about many other brands. After checking to see if they are a brand owned by HikVision or Dahua, I would check the hardware compatibility lists of software like SecuritySpy (on the Mac) or Blue Iris (on Windows) to see what they say about the camera(s) in question, and also what they recommend.
- eternityforest 5y ago
  There seems to be vauge rumors about them being bad for some reason, but the reviews all seem good. Maybe they're heavy users of fake reviews. It looks like Huawei has some of the same issues too, but one exec resigned, so maybe things will improve. Xiaomi seems to have slave labor problems too.
  - bradknowles 5y ago
    I've seen mixed reviews. Some say Reolink is good in certain situations, but others say otherwise. I have yet to find what I would consider to be a definitive review of them. I may have to try some out myself to find out.
    - eternityforest 5y ago
      https://www.reddit.com/r/homedefense/comments/8lkzw5/reolink_forcing_their_nvr_even_though_its_onvif/?utm_medium=android_app&utm_source=share https://www.reddit.com/r/homedefense/comments/8lkzw5/reolink... Looks like they do have some degree of ONVIF support. But it seems like some of them use dynamic keyframe intervals and don't send often for my keyframes-only detection trick to work(Unless the motion lasts long enough to have at least 1 keyframe), and people say it also messes up sync with sub-streams, but I've never used substreams and am not sure what the issue is. I assume things like blue iris watch the substream and discard the main stream till they see motion, and they lose all the content in between detection and the next keyframe?
      - bradknowles 5y ago
        As I understand it, the typical technique is to capture both streams at once. The high-res stream is just cached locally for a short period of time, unless there is some reason to keep any part of it. The low-res stream is the one that is actively monitored for those things you do want to record. So, you'd need to keep the two streams in sync, and you'd want frequent key frames so that you don't miss anything when you start or stop recording of the high-res stream. That would also make it a lot easier to stitch the 24x7 low-res background stream into the sections of high-res that were also captured.