I think I am starting from a disadvantaged position in that I want to run sharptools on Windows 10.
There is no Fully Kiosk Browser available and it would appear I need TinyCam Pro to convert the video streams from my cameras. Again this is an Android only app.
Please can someone explain the reason for having to use an intermediary app like Tinycam to stream video to a Media Tile? Is it the stream file type? Does TinyCam convert the stream? If so to what please?
I have looked at installing an android emulator on an always on backup PC but heard horror stories about viruses and spyware in the common ones. I considered upgrading to windows 11 and using the Windows Subsystem for Android but read Microsoft is shutting this down. I’ve even considered running an Android virtual machine just for TinyCam.
Has anyone done anything similar to overcome the need for a seperate android box? Are there any windows applications like iSpy that will carry out the same function as TinyCam?
Has anyone run TinyCam on an Android virtual machine if so What sort of resources does TinyCam need?
I have 2 x 5mp QVIS EYEVIP-5-FW(Ony-X) and 3x 5mpQVIS MBULLETVIP-5-VW, 5MP made by AData and a Qvis Falcon NVR which I want to display within media tiles. Is this doable without TinyCam? I know I cannot access the cams without a plugin for Internet Explorer (which is long deprecated) but the cams themself are ONVIF compatible although not RTSP from memory.
According to iSpy website the streams are FFMPEG. http://|/cgi-bin/view.cgi?chn=0&u=[USERNAME]&p=[PASSWORD]|
This is the main reason for considering Sharptools (along with Smartthings integration) but I seem to fall at the first hurdle.
Any suggestions greatly received
Hi there-
Thanks for posting. I suspect that several of your questions might be answered by the following help article.
The first part mentions the supported file types. The main thing being that many IP cameras output RTSP, but browsers don’t natively support RTSP.
As such, most people use one of the solutions noted at the bottom of that article - namely using software like TinyCam (Android) or Blue Iris (Windows) to translate the stream to a supported format like MJPEG.
Any software that can translate the stream to a supported format would work, so if there’s different software you prefer, that’s fine too.
FFMPEG is a software tool for processing video formats… but if the cameras directly output a format supported by browsers like MJPEG, then you might be able to use it directly. Just keep in mind that Chrome has started blocking mixed content by default as noted in the above linked help article (non-SSL in an SSL page), so you might need to tweak your Chrome settings on your PC to support that.
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The main first step is being able to view the camera stream directly in your web browser.
Once you get that part figured out, being able to embed them in SharpTools is usually pretty straightforward with the Chrome Mixed Content thing being the main “gotcha” for most people.
Thanks for the reply Josh, I did read the article you have pointed me to before posting but to be honest missed the bit about Blue Iris for Windows. I cannot access my cameras remotely via a modern browser. The only way to access the cameras is by using Internet Explorer and an ActiveX plug in. This does not work with chrome or modern browsers as ActiveX is not supported. It looks like I therefore need the intermediary software to work with Sharp Tools.
As an aside when I posted the stream url info from iSpy it included Type which was listed as FFMPEG.
It’s a shame I can’t upload the data sheets for the cameras but only images and not PDFs are allowed
I’ve noticed other listings in the iSpy database with FFMPEG before as well and assumed it was a typographical error, but I’m not sure what they meant by it.
You can always link to them. Or host them on Google Drive / One Drive / iCloud and link to that.