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Any recommendations for ONVIF-compliant cameras for home use? I've tried a handful of used hikvision / dahua in the ~100usd range but they don't play nice with

by Frotag 2y ago

Any recommendations for ONVIF-compliant cameras for home use? I've tried a handful of used hikvision / dahua in the ~100usd range but they don't play nice with anything other than the vendor's software. Like VLC / open source VMSs can't play the RTSP stream. And even then, its a crapshoot whether features like stream configuartion or PTZ work. I know the ONVIF group publishes a list of verified-compliant models but it's been a pain trying to find one that's affordable and in stock. I've heard from devs that work on this stuff that most of this pain stems from how loose the ONVIF spec is. Too many optional features (even per "profile"), too vague on requirements, leading to lots of vendor-specific metadata / camera quirks.

bombcar 2y ago
I went through a bit of a spat with cameras, and had luck with things from Amcrest, Reolink, and various similar ones on Amazon. All worked with VLC over RTSP, though I didn't go deep into PTZ setups. What I did was go to them via the https://forums.zoneminder.com https://forums.zoneminder.com and looked for recent posts. It's even more of a crapshoot because some of the cameras were absolute shite until I found some sketchy Chinese firmware of a particular version, which made them suddenly beautiful. All of these are very securely cordoned off and unable to contact the Internet at large, of course.
- hunter2_ 2y ago
  Is Zoneminder your main interface? I've been using it for several years with a few Reolink 5MP cameras, and maybe it comes down to choices I've made which I should revisit, but it's painfully slow (say, 30 seconds) to start playing, or seek within, an event video. I record only events. I am now experimenting with the RLN36 NVR instead, and thinking about having enough disks to record continuously instead of events only. Ideally I want continuous recording, and I want a timeline of events that aren't separate files, but are just shortcuts to alarm times within the continuous recording, with minimal seek delay. Interface must be friendly to small screens (phone size) which the RLN36 web UI isn't particularly. Maybe the zmNinja app.
  - bombcar 2y ago
    I used zone minder for a bit until I realized I don't actually care about recording at all for my use cases, now I just directly VLC to the camera itself. If I were to set it up again, I'd go further down the home assistant path (one camera I got setup so it appears in HomeKit, but I never bothered getting the rest).
lormayna 2y ago
I am using the ones from SRICAM brand. The quality is not great, but they are cheap and they work well with ONVIF and motion.
hughesjj 2y ago
Reolink+annke work with onvif in VLC and Shinobi on my side, but I had to turn off h.265 to get it working in Shinobi (worked fine in VLC)

by Frotag 2y ago

bombcar 2y ago

I went through a bit of a spat with cameras, and had luck with things from Amcrest, Reolink, and various similar ones on Amazon. All worked with VLC over RTSP, though I didn't go deep into PTZ setups. What I did was go to them via the https://forums.zoneminder.com https://forums.zoneminder.com and looked for recent posts. It's even more of a crapshoot because some of the cameras were absolute shite until I found some sketchy Chinese firmware of a particular version, which made them suddenly beautiful. All of these are very securely cordoned off and unable to contact the Internet at large, of course.

hunter2_ 2y ago
Is Zoneminder your main interface? I've been using it for several years with a few Reolink 5MP cameras, and maybe it comes down to choices I've made which I should revisit, but it's painfully slow (say, 30 seconds) to start playing, or seek within, an event video. I record only events. I am now experimenting with the RLN36 NVR instead, and thinking about having enough disks to record continuously instead of events only. Ideally I want continuous recording, and I want a timeline of events that aren't separate files, but are just shortcuts to alarm times within the continuous recording, with minimal seek delay. Interface must be friendly to small screens (phone size) which the RLN36 web UI isn't particularly. Maybe the zmNinja app.
- bombcar 2y ago
  I used zone minder for a bit until I realized I don't actually care about recording at all for my use cases, now I just directly VLC to the camera itself. If I were to set it up again, I'd go further down the home assistant path (one camera I got setup so it appears in HomeKit, but I never bothered getting the rest).

lormayna 2y ago

I am using the ones from SRICAM brand. The quality is not great, but they are cheap and they work well with ONVIF and motion.

hughesjj 2y ago

Reolink+annke work with onvif in VLC and Shinobi on my side, but I had to turn off h.265 to get it working in Shinobi (worked fine in VLC)