Web cams not showing up in tiles GH hub

SharpTools.io (web)
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I am currently using a fork of CATT with assistant relay and so far everything is working great with sharptools on both a GH and Lenovo. My issue is I can’t see the security camera streams. The media links work fine within sharptools on my Mac’s browser but show the broken image link. I’ using SecuritySpy (like blue iris for the Mac).
Anyone casting security video to a google home hub or Lenovo smart display? This is the last piece of my puzzle to replace actiontiles.

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Welcome to the community and thanks for posting!

Can you clarify this point? The media links work fine on your Mac browser, but show the broken image link? I’m not sure I follow this part - are you able to successfully see the streams working in your Media Tiles on your dashboard on your Mac?

In the meantime, here’s a few other ideas for troubleshooting:

  • Double check that the Google Display and the Mac are on the same network (eg. Make sure that one didn’t end up on the guest wifi or on a different subnet if you have an advanced network setup)
  • Verify that the MJPEG streams can be accessed from another device like an iPad or phone (which would help rule out firewall or other connectivity issues)
  • Try casting the MJPEG streams directly to the Google Display via CATT
    • I’m not sure what limitations Google Cast displays have on streams, but it would be helpful to verify that the built-in Cast browser can at least view the streams directly
    • You might also try a snapshot image from your camera if the MJPEG streams don’t work. This could always work as a fallback if the streams don’t work.
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I can see the streams on my Mac using sharptools within a chrome browser. Viewing sharptools with my iPad and safari, the tile was blank.
The GH web cam tile does not show a stream but a small fractured image like the link is invalid.
Confirmed that all devices are on the same network.
I could not cast the stream directly from assistant relay to the GH.

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I think the issue is the login credentials for SecuritySpy. I was able to access one of the streams via iPad safari directly and was prompted for the user/pwd. Worked after entering credentials. Not sure if/how I can pass credentials in sharptools or GH. Might have to look for another option.

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Based on a quick Google search, it looks like SecuritySpy has an option for adding the username/password into the URL. From what I can tell, it looks like you pass it in as an auth parameter in the URL (with the value being the base64 encoded user:pass)

So if the base URL was something like:

http://demo.viewcam.me:8000/++video?cameraNum=1

And if we had the following credentials:

  • Username: user
  • Password: pass

If we base64 encoded those (for example with base64decode.org) we get the following:

user:pass → dXNlcjpwYXNz

Which gives us the final URL of:

http://demo.viewcam.me:8000/++video?cameraNum=1&auth=dXNlcjpwYXNz

You can find more details on the SecuritySpy website:

https://bensoftware.com/blog/adding-live-video-to-any-web-page/

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Hi Josh, thanks for replying so quickly. I also found this info last night and unfortunately, formatting the URL with the auth still prompts for the username and password when pasting the link for one camera in my Mac’s browser. I think I was able to view the stream on my Mac in sharptools before because I had logged on to SecuritySpy at another time but on any new device or after I logout of SecuritySpy web I lose the stream on my Mac’s chrome browser.
Looks like the updated URL for the camera still does not work without entering the credentials.
I am using a Pi with assistant relay (w/Catt) so maybe I can find a Linux camera NVR app.

Thanks again for your assistance.

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Thanks for the update. Let us know if you reach out to SecuritySpy and if they have a solution for you!

I haven’t personally used it, but I’ve seen other community members mention the use of MotionEye on Raspberry Pi devices to translate their camera streams into a supported format.

Fair warning that the Raspberry Pi it’s not the most powerful device so it’s probably not the best suited for re-encoding camera streams, but others have had success with it in certain scenarios. On that same note, I vaguely recall in the people who used MotionEye on Raspberry Pi saying that they limited some of the output settings (lower resolution / frame rate) to minimize the impact on the Raspberry Pi.

The other thing you might check is if your camera provides a direct MJPEG stream or image snapshot as you might be able to add it directly to your dashboard if so.

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I got it working with a rasp pi 4 and motioneyeos.

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