IP Cameras in QLab?

[MattM]

There was a fair amount of discussion around the web a few years ago about using IP cameras with Syphon, but the tools necessary to do that (IPtoSyphon, for one) seem to either have been broken by updates to OS X from Apple, or simply abandoned.  Is anyone currently bringing IP camera streams into QLab, and if so, how?  

Figure 53 folk -> as a feature, is this something QLab might ever support natively?  PTZ security cameras are cheap and plentiful, and represent another low CPU way of getting video into our workspaces.  Any chance that could be placed on the roadmap?

Alternatively, for anyone who might find it useful, I'm using a program called SecuritySpy (http://www.bensoftware.com/) that, while technically intended to record and monitor security cameras, seems like a pretty stable, well-developed program that can accept and record from a large number of IP cameras if you have the right license.  I am already successfully pulling clips recorded in SecuritySpy into QLab via Applescript, but I would love to be able to also use the live stream from my IP Cameras as camera cues in QLab.  I haven't figured out how to do that given what's currently available in Syphon under OSX Sierra.  

I have just asked SecuritySpy's developer (Ben) about whether he'd consider implementing Syphon (in my case, specifically so I can use live IP camera feeds in QLab).  He seems to think it would be fairly straightforward to implement Syphon, but I'm the first person who's asked and he's looking for use cases why it might be justified to support Syphon on his platform.  Discussion here: Syphon support?

I've given my use case on their forum, but if this is a feature that would appeal to you (having a stable, currently supported program managing all the video feeds from your IP cameras, and making them available as Syphon sources to programs such as QLab), I'd encourage you to drop by the forum and share your use cases for how it might be helpful for you.  

Cheers,

Matt

[mic]

hi,

probably a hack, but did you try to Syphonize SS with SyphonInject?

[MattM]

Hi Mic, no, but I read about SyphonInject. It seems a little mad scientist-y...is it stable?

[Chris Ashworth]

Hi Matt,

It’s an interesting question! I’d have to spend some time researching them to get a sense of it. One thing we’d want to avoid is dealing with a situation where we have to write custom code for many individual products, but I really have no idea if that’s all standardized or not.

-C

[Paul Gotch]

On 16 Feb 2017, at 17:50, Chris Ashworth <ch...@figure53.com> wrote:

Hi Matt,

It’s an interesting question! I’d have to spend some time researching them to get a sense of it. One thing we’d want to avoid is dealing with a situation where we have to write custom code for many individual products, but I really have no idea if that’s all standardized or not.

https://www.onvif.org/

However there is a lot of proprietary stuff as well.

In particular a lot of the cheaper systems are proprietary.

-p

-C

On February 15, 2017 at 7:22:55 PM, 'MattM' via QLab (ql...@googlegroups.com) wrote:

There was a fair amount of discussion around the web a few years ago about using IP cameras with Syphon, but the tools necessary to do that (IPtoSyphon, for one) seem to either have been broken by updates to OS X from Apple, or simply abandoned.  Is anyone currently bringing IP camera streams into QLab, and if so, how?  

Figure 53 folk -> as a feature, is this something QLab might ever support natively?  PTZ security cameras are cheap and plentiful, and represent another low CPU way of getting video into our workspaces.  Any chance that could be placed on the roadmap?

Alternatively, for anyone who might find it useful, I'm using a program called SecuritySpy (http://www.bensoftware.com/) that, while technically intended to record and monitor security cameras, seems like a pretty stable, well-developed program that can accept and record from a large number of IP cameras if you have the right license.  I am already successfully pulling clips recorded in SecuritySpy into QLab via Applescript, but I would love to be able to also use the live stream from my IP Cameras as camera cues in QLab.  I haven't figured out how to do that given what's currently available in Syphon under OSX Sierra.  

I have just asked SecuritySpy's developer (Ben) about whether he'd consider implementing Syphon (in my case, specifically so I can use live IP camera feeds in QLab).  He seems to think it would be fairly straightforward to implement Syphon, but I'm the first person who's asked and he's looking for use cases why it might be justified to support Syphon on his platform.  Discussion here: Syphon support?

I've given my use case on their forum, but if this is a feature that would appeal to you (having a stable, currently supported program managing all the video feeds from your IP cameras, and making them available as Syphon sources to programs such as QLab), I'd encourage you to drop by the forum and share your use cases for how it might be helpful for you.  

Cheers,

Matt

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[MattM]

Thanks Paul and Chris. Yes, at least looking at the list of cameras that SS supports, there are easily 15-20 different settings choices (maybe more; I'm using "Amcrest" cameras, so I haven't even gone that far down the list alphabetically!) for different cameras, so it does appear to be a bit of a rats' nest. It's for that reason that I'm hoping that I can convince Ben at SecuritySpy to support Syphon, because they're already managing all the other camera settings for you anyway. I'd want the signal coming into QLab to be as clean as possible.

All of that said, though, I am under the impression that the great majority of IP cameras also make a UDP, TCP or HTTP stream available that's fairly generic and can be picked up by any device listening on the port where the stream being transmitted. VLC, for example, has the generic ability to open video streams from IP cameras. That seems like a much simpler, easier to implement solution -- allowing "Camera" cues in QLab to take a network stream as a source -- and I would think (although, admittedly, I'm talking out my backside here) a lot of the other protocol-specific stuff could be avoided, even if it means you don't have control of the camera's other functions. ONVIF, for example, includes an API method for controlling the PTZ settings of the camera, but I personally wouldn't care about that in QLab. I'd be perfectly happy to manage the camera's PTZ in a proper camera controller such as SS, rather than wanting to see a full featured PTZ controller for dozens of different camera systems into QLab.

M

[richardm]

Hi Matt

There's a lot of really interesting of Syphon / NDI / video over network development happening at Techlife, mostly geared toward VJs...One possibility would be to use a browser or VLC to view the camera stream and then capture the application window with 'ScreenCaptureSyphon' - you'd see your stream as a camera input in QLab. 

R

[sam kusnetz]

Hi folks

We have a ticket in our issue tracker to explore adding IP camera input in QLab, but as with all feature requests I cannot say when or even if we will implement the feature.

We love hearing from QLabbers about features they want! I would, however, like to gently discourage folks from during phrases like "this seems like it would be easy to implement." In our experience, that turns out to be true more or less 0% of the time.

But please don't take that as discouragement of making the request or having the conversation in the first place!

All my best

Sam

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[Jonathan Pearce]

It'd certainly be much easier than using flaky software to convert IP cam streams into Syphon streams for Qlab to see. In terms of config - could you set it up such that the user inputs the address/port and any suffixes required? This is how IPCam2Syphon works.

[Sam Kusnetz]

On February 17, 2017 at 7:38:44 AM, Jonathan Pearce (jonrp...@gmail.com) wrote:

It'd certainly be much easier than using flaky software to convert IP cam streams into Syphon streams for Qlab to see. In terms of config - could you set it up such that the user inputs the address/port and any suffixes required? This is how IPCam2Syphon works.

I wasn’t suggesting that it wouldn’t be easy to use, I was saying that it’s probably not easy for us to create.

:)

-sk

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