Analogue from IP Camera Stream

[epyscs]

Hey Guys, thanks for the help you have offered so far with our setup. We are having one major problem though that we cannot get resolved and any advice is appreciated... basically we need to decode 4 camera streams to an analogue BNC / RCA composite feed. Long story short, these will feed another computer for judging the image stream and cant go digital yet.

We have tried Grandstream GXV3500 devices, but they are laggy and quality is hit and miss. We have tried a graphics card with analogue out, but we cant get enough outputs as well as the dual HDMI screens we need to run.

Any thoughts?

I see Dahua have something like this (NVD0405DH-4K), but has anyone used one?
I also see that Hikvision do a DS-6404HDI-T too which is 4 channel decoder?

Cheers guys!

 

[bp2008]

Can't you use more than one graphics card and/or video signal splitters?

 

[epyscs]

I am not sure what video signal splitters are?
As for graphics cards, yes we could add more, but we are running into a few limitations.

Here is what we would need to do with the decoding PC:
1x HDMI signal showing either 1 or 3 cameras depending on the event we are monitoring.
- The same display needs to be duplicated on an analogue output (we were thinking of using the second HDMI on the graphics card and a Gefen HDMI to analogue converter).
3, ideally 4 separate analogue outputs with each showing an individual IP camera.

So the challenges I see with this are as follows:
- not sure we can duplicate 1 screen over 2 outputs and the rest set up as individual extended desktops in windows.
- most software such as the iVMSS or Blue Iris seems to be limited to a max of 3 individual screen outputs.
- if we used VLC on each of the screens, after restart they like to head back to the main screens every time and need you to restart the stream. Very annoying, plus the command line stuff to move to a different screen location doesnt seem to work for us.
- not sure the computer processor will cope!
- we havent found a 4x analogue output video card as yet that is low profile (we have a Smaller tower PC case).

Its a tough one, but appreciate your assistance so far bp2008.

Cheers - Chris

 

[bp2008]

You can get fairly cheap HDMI splitters which duplicate one HDMI video signal to multiple displays. Amazon.com: HDMI splitter Note that several of these search results are actually for devices which switch between multiple inputs or outputs. Those won't be useful for you; what you want is the ones which take one input and simultaneously output it to two or more displays.

This $10 device will take an HDMI input and produce analog video output: http://amzn.com/B06W9LQDBB

However you would likely need to spend around $40 each for graphics cards with one HDMI output each, and you probably don't have a lot of slots for these anyway.

Another idea is to use Raspberry Pi computers. There would be a bit of a learning curve if you haven't worked with them before, but they are cheap and they can output analog video. The original Pi model B has an RCA video jack on it, and the newer pi models require a simple adapter. You can run software like this SvenVD/rpisurv to pull a sub stream (or a main stream, up to 1920x1080) from your cameras directly and not need to involve a VMS program like Blue Iris.

 

[epyscs]

The HDMI splitter approach is certainly one we are considering, but we are not keen on using the HDMI to RCA adapters. We already gone through two that have bricked themselves.

The Pi idea could be interesting - thanks. If we got them set up right (and it certainly would be a learning curve!) what are the chances of them being set and forget? The users of this system will certainly not be techie and I cant be on site to reset stuff each time. It needs to be as close to power-on and good to go as possible.

 

[bp2008]

The rpisurv software is designed to be robust and unattended, so it should be quite reliable. If it stops working for some reason, someone can power cycle the pi that stopped working properly.

I would encourage having a VPN server at the site so you can log in remotely to troubleshoot anything if necessary.