I have a ton of various IP cameras around my property. I want to put up a screen to display some of the cameras like the front door, front yard, etc. What are some suggestions or setups you all are using to accomplish this?
I mostly use Reolink cameras (some Amcrest, too). I was using a Reolink NVR as it gave me the smoothest video and just ran a long HDMI cable. Didn’t use it to record (I use Synology for that), but it worked great for just ‘displaying cameras.’ However, I added the Reolink Home Hub Pro, and it cannot work with both the Home Hub and the NVR, which is dumb.
@Willa
How do you like BI? I always wanted to try it, but I am a 100% Mac guy, so I would have to build a PC. I do have Scrypted set up and it works well… I suppose I could send that to a screen?
The UniFi NVR is better - but the problem with that one is that the UniFi HDMI adapter doesn’t support portrait, only landscape. Otherwise, I would have moved over.
@Willa
I hear GREAT things about Unifi. It’s all I use for my networking items. And in their EA software release, they are adding ONVIF support for 3rd party cams.
If I use their HDMI out to a screen, how do you manage how the cameras display? I have never used Unifi Protect or their cams before.
@Willa
You hear great things about Unifi because you don’t ask people who do this for a living. That stuff is garbage, and they have terrible image quality. Some of the smallest image sensors of any brand at their price.
My guess is that you want to display 1 or 2 cameras per screen. You can probably get some cheap Android tablets, download your app (mine is XMEYE), and then just view whatever camera you want.
Or you can figure out the RTSP address for each camera and view it via batch file with VLC Player with an RTSP URL.
In my case, I have an HDMI splitter and an HDMI to RJ45 adapter to send the video signal to the main floor on a monitor. So I have a monitor in the basement (connected to the splitter on HDMI 1) and a monitor on the main floor (HDMI to RJ45 connected to HDMI 2 on the splitter)…
Most cameras are RTSP and ONVIF devices. The NVR retrieves ONVIF video stream data from the camera, stores it on the HDD, and the NVR usually has compatible apps like XMEYE or the Reolink app.
You can also use streaming apps like VLC Player to display video streams directly from the cameras without the need for NVRs. Blue Iris is an NVR software that runs on PC and can be used in place of NVRs, allowing you to stream to apps/software.
Here’s a Reolink guide for using VLC Player with Reolink cameras.
Samsung decoder. SPD-151 or SPD-152. Can program as many IP cams as you want into it and arrange them into a grid. HDMI output to whatever display you want.
mikey47 said:
Samsung decoder. SPD-151 or SPD-152. Can program as many IP cams as you want into it and arrange them into a grid. HDMI output to whatever display you want.
This? Does it use RTSP and/or ONVIF? I assume it has a web interface to program everything?
@FundingFinderFelix
Yep. It powers solely on POE, so it just needs a connection to your POE camera switch. You can program via a web interface or locally with a mouse. Unless you’re using Samsung cameras, you’ll need to manually program the RTSP stream from the camera.
