Tiles for TinyPro (Hikvision IP Camera) feeds?

[S_D]

Is there a way to add a media tile that shows live streams from cameras set up in TinycamPro (or the native NVR for that matter)?

[josh]

Yes, the Media Tile supports any MJPG feeds which you can pull from TinyCam or many native NVRs.

Check out the following help article on setting up Media Tiles:

How do I add video / images to a SharpTools dashboard? - SharpTools Knowledge...

[josh]

For TinyCam, the following community post might be helpful: TinyCam with WyzeCam

In order to embed a camera feed from TinyCam into a SharpTools.io dashboard, you’ll enable the webserver that’s built into TinyCam and then you can access your camera feeds as an MJPG stream with the following URL format:

http://{tiny.cam.address:port}/axis-cgi/mjpg/video.cgi?camera={id}

For example, you might end up with something like:
https://192.168.1.11:8083/axis-cgi/mjpg/video.cgi?camera=2

You should be able to test your URL directly in your browser and it should start streaming your video. You might have to play with the camera ID to get the right camera.

Note that if you have a username and password enabled in your webserver, you can add it as a URL parameter:
https://192.168.1.11:8083/axis-cgi/mjpg/video.cgi?camera=2&user=admin&pwd=mypassword

You can also get an image snapshot by using image.cgi instead:
https://192.168.1.11:8083/axis-cgi/jpg/image.cgi?camera=2

[S_D]

Thx, hmm, just seem to get a black tile when I try the above. Using Hikvision cameras, if it matters. Thinking about it though, TinycamPro is simply an app I use on my phone to view my cameras. They’re actually hooked up to a Hikvision NVR.

[S_D]

Let’s see if I can figure it out with that spycamera link, the cameras are Hikvision DS-2CD2142FWD-IS. Internal Camera IP address and port is http://192.168.1.xx:65001.

No luck so far.

[josh]

@S_D

Thx, hmm, just seem to get a black tile when I try the above.

For the TinyCam approach, you’ll need to make sure you first enable the webserver in TinyCam and that you can access it from a browser. Then modify the URL format provided above with the IP address of your phone/tablet which is running the TinyCam webserver.

@S_D

the cameras are Hikvision DS-2CD2142FWD-IS

Are you trying to connect directly to the camera or do you have an NVR as mentioned in your original post?

Looking through iSpyConnect, it looks like most of the URLs provided for that specific camera model are RTSP streams which won’t work directly with a web browser and thus won’t work in the SharpTools Media Tiles either.

From the iSpyConnect page, you’re looking for a ‘Type’ of either MJPG or JPEG and the ‘Protocol’ needs to be http.

From what I’ve seen on the ipcamtalk forums, it looks like there may be an MJPG option for some of the Hikvision series, but I’m not sure if it applies to your model or not:

First you have to set the sub stream to MJPEG while this is the only one available for MJPEG request (2xx2 IP cam series).

Then use the following syntax:

http://user:pass@ip_address/Streaming/channels/102/httppreview

As with the other solutions, I would try viewing this URL directly in your browser first to see if you can get an image to display directly in your browser. Once you’ve confirmed that you can view it directly in your browser, then try adding it as a Media item in SharpTools.

One thing I would note is that Chrome and some other modern browsers have started blocking the ability to have a user:pass@ip_address format embedded in pages (like SharpTools). If your camera supports disabling the username/password on your local network or has another approach for including the credentials, then you’re good to go.

If you can disable the username/password on the camera (at least for testing), then the format from the ipcamtalk forum post would be:
http://ip_address/Streaming/channels/102/httppreview

Alternatively, you might try the other formats which seem to be available on some Hikvision models:

• http://[ip]:[port]/snapshot.cgi?user=[USERNAME]&pwd=[PASSWORD]
• http://[ip]:[port]/cgi-bin/snapshot.cgi?chn=[CHANNEL]&u=[USERNAME]&p=[PASSWORD]
• http://[ip]:[port]/cgi-bin/snapshot.cgi?loginuse=[USERNAME]&loginpas=[PASSWORD]
• http://[ip]:[port]/api/mjpegvideo.cgi?InputNumber=1&StreamNumber=[CHANNEL]
• http://[ip]:[port]/cgi-bin/viewer/video.jpg
• http://[ip]:[port]/axis-cgi/mjpg/video.cgi
• http://[ip]:[port]/image/jpeg.cgi

[S_D]

@josh

http://{tiny.cam.address:port}/axis-cgi/mjpg/video.cgi?camera={id}

Okay, can’t seem to access the Hik cameras directly or via the NVR. So trying the Tinycampro route. Not sure how one “enables” the webserver, the only clickable option is whether to use https or not. So I clicked the Use HTTPS box. Left user name and password blank. Port is 8083.

I then inserted:

“http://{tiny.cam.address:port}/axis-cgi/mjpg/video.cgi?camera=1”, with my tablet’s IP address in the “tiny.cam.address” section and the port as 8083 per Tinycampro.

Tried with both Https and http (enabling and disabling https check box". Both timed out in my browser.

Thanks for helping btw!

[S_D]

ah…figured it out, there’s an enable webserver button that isn’t in the “settings” but in the main section of tinycampro…perfect!

[josh]

Yup! That’s it. Here’s a screenshot for anyone else who finds this thread while searching:

Edit: The HTTPS option can be left disabled as well. TinyCam generates it’s own SSL cert when that option is used which is invalid in most browsers anyway.

[S_D]

Curious if others are having difficulties with TinyCamPro’s webserver functionality. I have tried it on a raspberry Pi and an android box, and in both cases it’s hit and miss for no reason. E.g., I can get camera 1 to feed through typically no problem. But getting other cameras sometimes returns a blank tile, and even if I access the IP address I get a timeout. Even though on the box with tinycam it works fine.

Moving to Blue Iris shortly, do I need to set up a webserver with that for Sharptools as I don’t want to forward any ports for security reasons.

[James]

@S_D, have you reach out to TinyCam’s support? Many users are able to add multiple cameras with no problem, so there might be something to fix the issue.

As for Blue Iris, you do need to setup the web server in Blue Iris, but you don’t need to forward the port if your tablet or whatever device running SharpTools dashboard is in the same network with the Blue Iris server, because the video will be streamed to the tablet directly without going out of your home network.

[josh]

@S_D

I have tried it on a raspberry Pi and an android box, and in both cases it’s hit and miss for no reason.

What type of Android TV box? The NVIDIA Shield TV is recommended by the TinyCam developer. I’ve seen at least a few cases of people who were having difficulty with TinyCam running on Fire tablets or other low powered devices switch to the NVIDIA Shield and have much better experiences.

@S_D

Moving to Blue Iris shortly, do I need to set up a webserver with that for Sharptools as I don’t want to forward any ports for security reasons.

As James mentioned, Blue Iris has a built-in webserver that can be enabled. If you’re just using Blue Iris on your network, you won’t need to do any port forwarding and may want to change the Authentication option to ‘Non-LAN Only’:

@josh

I normally just use the format:

http://{blue.iris.ip}:{port}/mjpg/{short_name}

Do you have authentication required on your Blue Iris server? If I remember correctly, it’s in Blue Iris settings under Web Server → Advanced section → Authentication. I have mine set to something like "Non-LAN only" which means that I can hit the streams locally without providing any username/password, but if I try to hit it from outside my network, I have to provide the password.