Hikvision NVR cannot be discovered

Hey,

Actually bOS doesn't find my NVR either with the discovery. But the image is working for me with this link https://%u:%p@%ip:8443/Streaming/channels/1/picture try if it works.

Hi thanks. I will try again when I go back to office tomorrow. But just want to check whether there are compatibility issues between the Hikvision Network Video Recorder (NVR) and Comfortclick? 

Hi, 

To provide an update, i have inserted "http://%u:%p@%ip:65001/ISAPI/Streaming/channels/1/picture?resolution=640x480" under JPEG Source. The cam jpeg picture appears inside the bOS client app and gets refreshed every second as configured. (please refer to the attachment) 

On the other hand, I still have no luck in the mpeg streaming. Although the url link "rtsp://%u:%p@%ip:554/Streaming/Channels/101" is able to stream the video on iSpy and VLC media player, the cam video still doesn't show up on the bOS client app

Have I missed out any step in the configuration of the mpeg streaming? Or has anyone encountered the same issue as me? 

IP Camera_Config.png 

Hello,

I have an old Hikvision camera and I've conducted some testing.

As far as I am aware, and please correct me if I'm wrong, you will only be able to use RTSP, if the server is based on Windows (and not a Jigsaw).

I've added the same device on both Jigsaw Pro and local Windows server:

On Jigsaw, it fails to use RTSP so it fallsback to the snapshots;

On Windows server, it does support RTSP (the camera on the visualization needs to have Enable Streaming set to True, otherwise it will fallback again to the snapshots);

So unless you're using a Windows based server (own, or a Grinder for example) you won't be able to use RTSP.

Please someone correct me if I'm wrong.

Side note from ComfortClick documentation:

MPEG: MPEG video stream, usually H.264 over RTSP protocol (requires 3rd party plugin, VLC, QuickTime or Axis AMC).

So I assume that to use RTSP, the bOS server needs to be running on a Windows platform, and not on Linux (Jigsaw).

Best regards

I tested only on windows. I noticed that the server I was testing on can only play 1 stream... If I had 6 streams/cams in one frame after the page refresh some other random camera would play. And for my test nvr I got the rtsp working but not the jpeg... maybe that's why it cant handle multiple streams.

I got the picture stream to work too. Had to set it to stream mjpeg- Now its able to stream all 6 cameras. rtsp stream takes too much resources. Also i didnt have the virtual host setting set before.

Hi Ricardo,

Thanks for sharing your findings, they are indeed insightful. I suppose Comfortclick team could have clarified that RTSP streaming only works on pc-based windows server. I spent almost a day figuring out what went wrong with the video streaming. 

Hi Jurgen,

I think if there's more than 1 video stream on the panel, we need to set the Enable Streaming to False for that panel to prevent overloading the bOS server. We can then set panel links to hook up these cameras respectively and stream each of them on separate panels. (https://www.comfortclick.com/BOS/KnowledgeBase/IPCamera). Yes you are right, RTSP streaming indeed takes up a lot of resources. 

Btw, thanks for figuring out alternative method to stream the video by changing the stream type (Sub-Stream) and video encoding (MJPEG). But for now I will stick to snapshot (jpeg) to stream the video as I do not intend to change the settings of the NVR.

As I also use Control4 to provide smart home visualization for my clients, I have to set up virtual ports (i.e 65001, 65002 etc) inside the HIKVISION NVR's software configurator as required by C4. That explains why my snapshot URL is quite different.

I agree, RTSP takes too much resources.

In fact, on the Hikvision API it refers the possibility of changing the substream to MJPEG, and therefore use it on bOS as a lightweight stream.

As usually I don't need motion (snapshot frames are enough for what I need to see), I never change the substream to MJPEG. Can't remember, but I think I had some trouble with MPJEG on the Hikvision app, maybe that's why I never changed the substream.

But if it's good enough for Daryl, go for it man! :)

Best regards