Posts made by Steven Kan_61128021664

Ugh. Still having this problem. See here:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC7FH1CCSdg1-W9mlJ52cceQ/live

As the bees run along the walls, they should run smoothly. But they appear to jerk, as though the camera is repeating frames.

At long last I think I have figured this out. The culprit is the "3D Noise Reduction" feature in the camera. 3D noise reduction tries to average non-moving portions of adjacent frames in an attempt to reduce temporal noise. The non-RTSP stream received by the Reolink client does this properly, and outputs frames in order. The RTSP stream does _not_ do this properly, so it repeats some frames, which results in the stuttering effect that you see here. If you turn off the 3D Noise Reduction, then the RTSP stream works properly, although the bit rate goes way up. Other manufacturers implement 3D Noise Reduction properly in their RTSP streams.

Would love to take credit, BUT.... This question came up several weeks ago and ”Double Click” was the answer.
There are days that I move the mouse around the screen clicking to see if anything happens.

LOL! I manage a software development team at work, and madly clicking around or banging on the keyboard is how I test for bugs.

double click in the Playback window, which causes it to split into four smaller windows.
”intuitive”? no.

Thanks! That works, and is completely non-intuitive.

How did you figure it out?

For Reolink, please consider having a standard "n-Up" selector in the Playback window, just as you do for Live View.

I recently upgraded from the old "Reolink Client" v3.3.14.45 to the new "Reolink" app v8.1.20 on both my Mac and on my PC. While most of the new features are great, such as 4x playback, and the performance improvement is good, I can't figure out how to get more than 1 camera to play back simultaneously.

In the old v3.3.14.45 it worked, and I could see simultaneous playback from multiple cameras with overlapping views, which is very important for many security applications:



but I can't find a way to add more than 1 channel in the new version, even though it clearly shows that it should support 4 channels of playback:



The Knowledge Base contains this article with conflicting information. One part reads:

Note: You can only playback one device at a time on Reolink App and Web browser.

but then it contains links that read:

How to Playback Recordings of Multiple Cameras at the Same Time on Reolink Client (Mac)

Unfortunately that link leads to a page that reads, "oops

You're not authorized to access this page"

Mitku, of course that would be the preferred solution, but all the evidence in the way the Reolink cameras operate suggests that they lack the hardware necessary to move by a specific physical step. If the cameras had physical steps that could be incremented or addressed, then the cameras would be able to store focus points instead of invoking auto-focus every time they go to a preset.

The fact that they _don't_ do this leads me to conclude that the motors in the cameras lack the hardware required to provide positional feedback to the controller.

That's why my proposal uses time instead of position, because that's the only way I can it working.

Is there any way to get a 4-up view on an iPad? I have an ancient iPad that I'd like to repurpose as a persistent monitor for the 4 most important cameras around my house.

Haha thanks! I like your stream by the way.

Thanks! It'll be a lot more reliable once I figure out how to stop/restart the service cleanly.

It seems it differs by model. Some cameras (my C2 and alex's RLC 410 and 420) appear to have an ”auto cleanup” of streams after a wait of about 30 seconds (after stream termination from the computer end), whereas for others (the cameras Steven Kan and bigger_law have), it appears there isn't such a function (thus requiring a camera reboot).

Ah, things are making more and more sense right now! I have a RLC-410S with Hardware No. IPC_3816M, and it barfs whenever the ffmpeg service stops or restarts.

I have an RLC-410 with Hardware No. IPC_51316M it doesn't seem to mind when my ffmpeg service stops/restarts.

I couldn't figure out why two such similar cameras behaved so differently.

My RLC-423 and my RLC-411 are both Hardware No. IPC_3816M, and both behave like my RLC-410S, e.g. they barf on ffmpeg stop/restart.

Ah, ok. Thanks! I'll ask over on arstechnica, where they know Unix. You still get a cookie for finding the solution!

Ah, I see. Right now I'm calling ffmpeg through a bash script:

#!/bin/bash
cd /usr/local/bin/
while true
do
./ffmpeg -re -thread_queue_size 512 -rtsp_transport tcp -i \
"rtsp://anonymous:password@192.168.1.11:554" -i WilliamTellOverture.mp3 \
-vcodec copy -acodec copy -t 00:11:51 -f flv \
"rtmp://a.rtmp.youtube.com/live2/my-youtube-streaming-key"
sleep 10s
done

that I'm running as a service:

[Unit]
Description=Streamer
After=network-online.target
Requires=network-online.target

[Service]
ExecStart=/usr/local/bin/StreamToYouTube1.sh
Restart=always
KillSignal=TERM

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

Can you advise on how I can specify the correct termination method when I send a:

'sudo systemctl stop StreamToYouTube'?

Thanks!

Thanks! I'm incredibly impressed that you were able to duplicate and fix such as obscure problem!

I'm copying and pasting your solution from GitHub:

FFMpeg.prototype.stop = function() {

// replace this...
//this.child.kill();

// with this...
this.child.stdin.write("q\r\n");

delete this.child;
this.emit('stop');
};

Does this mean I have to make this change in the ffmpeg source and recompile it?

Thanks!

Ugh. Still having this problem. See here:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC7FH1CCSdg1-W9mlJ52cceQ/live

As the bees run along the walls, they should run smoothly. But they appear to jerk, as though the camera is repeating frames.

I am pushing the RTSP stream from my Reolink 410S to my YouTube channel:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCIVY11504PcY2sy2qpRhiMg/live

I am waiting for a swarm of bees to move in, just as they did last year:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OtjpylAEP8I&feature=youtu.be&t=1800

but there's no way to predict when this will happen. But I do have the motion trigger alert turned on, to email me when the camera detects motion, and then I will know to go and view the YouTube stream. But how can I customize the email message so that it's more informative? I want to put a few dozen people on the notification list for the email, but I _DON'T_ want to give them direct access to my camera. I want to point them to my YouTube channel instead.

But right now the default email message just says:

Alarm Camera Name:Swarm Trap Exterior
Alarm Event:Motion Detection

Alarm Input Channel No.:1
Alarm Device Name:Swarm Trap Exterior

Where can I edit this message to embed my YouTube URL?

Thanks!

On many of the product listings, both at Reolink.com and at 3rd party retailers like amazon, there's now a big disclaimer that "* All Reolink security cameras work with Reolink NVRs ONLY":

https://reolink.com/product/rlc-420/

or "ONLY Work with Reolink POE Camera System and NVR, Onvif Incompatible":

https://smile.amazon.com/Reolink-Security-Outdoor-Indoor-Surveillance/dp/B07JQR37W6

Do these cameras still output standard RTSP?

I'm OK if these don't support ONVIF, but I can't use any cameras that don't support RTSP.

So that 30 second pause fixes things? I'll try putting a 30 second pause in my watchdog timer.

Thanks!

My BeeCam has 5 defined preset positions, but Cruise doesn't really work very well because the focus points are different for each preset, they're not stored, and the RLC-423S doesn't auto-focus automatically after moving to a preset.

So I wrote a script to do the following:

• Ask for username and password


• Cruise to each position


• Zoom inward to force an autofocus


• Stop


• Repeat

This works best if the desired zoom point is all the way in (or all the way out), so that the zoom inward doesn't change the desired field of view.

I have this running on a Raspberry Pi, after testing it first on my Mac. The syntax for a bash "for" loop may vary slightly from Unix to Unix, and you'll need jq installed to parse the json from the camera. But it works, and it works better (for me) than the built-in Cruise mode.

Furthermore, I couldn't paste the code in verbatim, because it includes angle quote characters that screw up the BBCode "code" tags. So you'll have to change the outermost quote characters in "ReolinkToken='curl . . . [].value.Token.name''" from normal single quotes ' to angle quotes.

#!/bin/bash

echo "username:"

read UserName

echo "password:"

read Password

for (( ; ; ))

do

ReolinkToken='curl -s GET "http://192.168.1.11/cgi-bin/api.cgi?cmd=Login&token=null" -d '[{"cmd":"Login","action":0,"param":{"User":{"userName":"'$UserName'","password":"'$Password'"}}}]' | jq -r '.[].value.Token.name''

echo $ReolinkToken

Positions=$1
Dwell=$2
PositionPause=4
FocusPause=3

for ((TheLoop=1; TheLoop<=$Positions; TheLoop++))
do
	curl -s POST "http://192.168.1.11/cgi-bin/api.cgi?cmd=PtzCtrl&token=$ReolinkToken" -d '[{"cmd":"PtzCtrl","action":0,"param":{"channel":0,"op":"ToPos","speed":32,"id":'$TheLoop'}}]'

echo "Panning to new preset . . . "
sleep $PositionPause

curl -s POST "http://192.168.1.11/cgi-bin/api.cgi?cmd=PtzCtrl&token=$ReolinkToken" -d '[{"cmd":"PtzCtrl","action":0,"param":{"channel":0,"op":"ZoomInc","speed":32}}]'

echo "Focusing . . . "
sleep $FocusPause

curl -s POST "http://192.168.1.11/cgi-bin/api.cgi?cmd=PtzCtrl&token=$ReolinkToken" -d '[{"cmd":"PtzCtrl","action":0,"param":{"channel":0,"op":"Stop"}}]'

echo "Dwelling for " $Dwell "seconds . . . "
sleep $Dwell

done

done

I am using Restreamer with my Raspberri Pi 3 and this camera model, with 0 knowledge and some hours reading I can install it; the only problem is that it stops every 9-11 hours, and does not automatically restart the transmission, (but it tries) so it has to be done manually. A pity that the project is abandoned, it is really great and there is nothing similar.

I am streaming my 3 Reolink cameras to YouTube using a Raspberry Pi 3 and ffmpeg. The bad news is that you have to compile ffmpeg on the Pi itself, because there is no installer. The good news is that there are multiple "cookie-cutter" sets of instructions on the internet. The other good news it that, if you set it up correctly, the ffmpeg software does not do any transcoding, and just forwards the RTSP stream to YouTube, so the CPU utilization is very low. I have one Pi forwarding 3 different cameras to 3 different YouTube channels, and it is still mostly idle:

https://www.youtube.com/user/IAmTheWaterbug/live

Here's an update, but this time the problem appears in the RTSP stream and not in the browser view:

You can see my choppy arm motion, and you can see the last digit of the time display flicker as it goes from 37 to 38 to 39.

This is not a VLC/client problem, because I have the exact same problem in other RTSP clients, such as ffmpeg feeding my YouTube channel. Look at the right side of this video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OtjpylAEP8I&feature=youtu.be&t=2000

This is not unique to one camera unit or even one model, as I've seen it on my RLC-423S as well as my RLC-411.

This is not a power supply problem, because I have tried 3 different POE switches, and I've seen the problem on all 3.

Sometimes I can "fix" it by changing to Color mode and then back to Black/White, but not always.

All cameras have updated firmware as of 4/22/19. The problem pre-dated the firmware update. I've also tried factory re-setting the cameras, and that has not helped.

Whether I log in from the iOS client or the web interface, or view the RTSP stream in a viewer, I get the same results--stuttering video. I don't have any local storage on the device, so here's a snippet from the YouTube archived stream:

https://youtu.be/GGPmEp_jZAA

You can see the stutter as the seconds display flips over from :18 to :19. If you watch the live view during Los Angeles daytime hours (GMT-8), you'll see lots of bee activity, and it'll be more obvious:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC7FH1CCSdg1-W9mlJ52cceQ/live

My RLC-410 works fine, with no stuttering:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCIVY11504PcY2sy2qpRhiMg/live

My RLC-423 also works fine, with no stuttering:

https://www.youtube.com/user/IAmTheWaterbug/live

Firmware on the RLC-411 is current at v2.0.0.1389_18081406, and I've tried rebooting it, reducing the data rate, etc., and nothing fixes the problem.

The RLC-410, RLC-411, and RLC-423 are all on the same Ethernet switch, so the network infrastructure isn't the problem, and I have 50 Mbps up/down on FIOS, so internet access isn't the problem.

Those first 2 live streams are supposed to be capturing a very important event tomorrow, so I'd love to get this fixed ASAP!

Thanks!

Yeah, everyone suggests putting the camera inside the mailbox. But then I'd get footage of a hand, and maybe a sleeve.

I need faces and license plates, so I need to put the camera a few feet away from the mailbox, and I might even want two--one pointing up the street and one pointing down the street.

I've put together a Pi-based camera system, but the software stack was flakey, and I didn't want to mess with trying to figure out triggered capture, etc.

I can probably figure out how to send an HTTP query via curl based on a switch opening, since I already have a time-lapse loop set up with another Reolink camera and a Pi.

The Reolink cameras are good; I just need a few more features.