DeskCamera to capture Virtual Desktop

[avekevin]

Hi all,

I'm in the process of building out a new camera system, Evaluating BI but some of my camera's aren't supported and only have a web interface to access. Why BI doesn't natively support a web feed is beyond me, but that's a conversation for a different day.

I've installed DeskCamera to work around this. I'd like to put the two web cams in full screen mode on a Windows virtual desktop (desktop 2). I launched DeskCamera on the same virtual desktop as the two web pages, and I'm able to preview the streams fine.

When I switch back to desktop 1 and enter the stream info into BI, it pulls up the feed fine but it's displaying the screens from desktop 1 rather than desktop 2.

Am I missing something? Does DeskCamera not support virtual desktops?

TIA

 

[TonyR]

Why BI doesn't natively support a web feed is beyond me, but that's a conversation for a different day.

Please elaborate on what a "web feed" from a camera is.

The two "web cams"...what is make and model, please.

It's unclear what it is you're trying to accomplish with Blue Iris, at least to me.

 

[avekevin]

Please elaborate on what a "web feed" from a camera is.

The two "web cams"...what is make and model, please.

It's unclear what it is you're trying to accomplish with Blue Iris, at least to me.

Hi and thanks for responding.

I've made some progress since my initial post.

I have an existing ZMODO camera setup that only supports cloud storage. I have engineered a solution that brings in the digital video files in MKV/HVEC format. I would now like to import these video files into the Blue Iris system so that I have a unified dashboard. I'd like to move the files into the "Stored" folder and import these into the BI database? Is this possible?

Thanks!

 

[avekevin]

Hi and thanks for responding.

I've made some progress since my initial post.

I have an existing ZMODO camera setup that only supports cloud storage. I have engineered a solution that brings in the digital video files in MKV/HVEC format. I would now like to import these video files into the Blue Iris system so that I have a unified dashboard. I'd like to move the files into the "Stored" folder and import these into the BI database? Is this possible?

Thanks!

More progress made...it has been an adventure.

These ZMODO cameras actually broadcast to the web using FLV and HVEC, which is a non-standard config supported by almost nothing else. I found two apps that do support it: PotPlayer and MKVToolNix.

At this time, I am using a DeskCam bound to a Chrome tab (rather than to an entire screen as I was doing originally) to capture the live view in BI. I am using a convoluted workflow to pull in the raw video:

CURL (to get the raw video feed from the web server) -> MKVToolNix (FLV/HVEC to MKV/HVEC) -> FFMPeg (MKV/HVEC to MP4/HVEC) -> Copy to BI "new" folder

I run this process in two hour chunks. I need to regenerate the BI database index for the app to see the videos I'm manually injecting. Is there a better way to do this?

This delicate process kind of falls apart on machine restarts - especially the binding with DeskCam. I am still working on that.

I purchased a 5MP S3VC IP camera that I am testing and will eventually use to replace these ZMODO junkers.

Comments appreciated.