Hey all, I'm the new guy here, PLEASE help me...

[Rickenbackerman]

I've had a crappy logitech webcam set up and port forwarded through my router to stream through the camstreams.com website for about 10 years now (to spy on my turtle and iguana while at work, haha). The camstreams site is going down soon, so I thought I'd try out one of these IP cams. I bought an Amcrest IP2M-841 after reading all of the positive reviews on Amazon and am now feeling like a total idiot after realizing I got duped into a product with what seems like decent hardware but absolute garbage software and thousands of bot-generated five star reviews. I've spent probably 15 hours over the last week trying to get it to work with absolutely no luck. I've tried calling their "customer support" three times. I've tried creating an account to try to get some help on their forum. All of my attempts have failed. It won't even work locally, let alone over the web. I give up on that company as of right now and it's getting returned.

I'm looking for a decent cam that I can port forward through my router (I'm on verizon FIOS) that has PTZ capabilities. I don't really even need https or encryption capabilities because what I do I care if some weirdo wants to look at my reptiles over the interwebz? So what do you guys recommend? I see Hikvision has a new cam out now for about $279 on amazon (less direct from China) that looks to fit the bill. Or do I go with Dahua? I don't really have a budget but I'm looking to spend a grand, either. This is the new Hik cam:

DS-2DE3304W-DE-Hangzhou Hikvision Digital Technology Co. Ltd.

I don't need recording capability, I don't need facial recognition or any other crazy fancy options, I just want live viewing remotely over the web with the option to PTZ. HELP!

Rob

 

[fenderman]

Welcome to the forum...see the threads discussing vpn...an insecure camera can lead to direct access to your network so unless you dont have any private info on any machine on your network it should be a concern. Amcrest is rebranded dahua...which is an excellent brand. What have you tried to get it working?

 

[Rickenbackerman]

Thanks, I was actually just reading those! What a coinkinkydink - Fenderman/Rickenbackerman!

BTW my router is a verizon MI424WR which does not appear to support VPN.

edit - since I see you edited since I posted - I thought Amcrest was rebranded Foscam? At any rate, I can get the video feed working thru IE but the interface is all buggy (most buttons don't even show up). Using firefox I can see all of the buttons although after installing their plugin I get no video feed. I just see a message that says "Resources are limited, failed to play video stream". My resources, however, are just fine. And I've tried everything I can think of.

 

[nayr]

All IP cameras require IE anymore as Firefox/Chrome has killed 3rd party plugins..

Foscam renamed them selves to Amcrest and started rebranding Dahua's.. the company sux but the hardware/software is fine. What camera do you have? If you bought a cheap PTZ its probably not a rebranded Dahua and very well could be a foScam.

You should consider broadcasting the camera to YouTube Live if your wanting a WebCam that works w/any browser.. Forwarding ports is very stupid; its not that you care about anyone looking at your turtles, its that someone will hijack your camera to attack other people on the internet..

 

[Rickenbackerman]

Thanks nayr,

I installed Wirecast today and set up a youtube live channel for my old logitech camera and got it working decently (the picture quality isn't that great, never has been though). Took a couple hours of fiddling around since I'm not all that tech-savvy...

Wirecast won't connect to my new Amcrest camera (IP2M-841). It can detect it, but when I enter my credentials it says the username and/or password are incorrect. It seems I have had nothing but problems with the Amcrest since I got it. You say their software is fine - my experience has been the absolute opposite. Their surveillance pro software doesn't work. Their "IPconfig" tool barely works. Their www.amcrestview.com route doesn't work. Camera only works on LAN using IE and even then I can only see the live feed and about 1/3 of the interface (PTZ controls and bunch of other things don't show up).

I'd love to be able to get wirecast to connect to the Amcrest camera directly and bypass using any and all of Amcrest's software. Any ides?

 

[ipnoob]

an insecure camera can lead to direct access to your network

Wait what? Don't you mean an improperly configured cam can be accessible, I don't see how a camera on your network can allow access to the rest of your network. If the camera were accessible the traffic should be routed to there and only there.

 

[fenderman]

Wait what? Don't you mean an improperly configured cam can be accessible, I don't see how a camera on your network can allow access to the rest of your network. If the camera were accessible the traffic should be routed to there and only there.

No.. You cant configure it to be secure unless you are talented enough to write your own firmware and are confident there are no security holes. There is tons of info on this on the internet as well as this forum...once the camera is properly penetrated, the attacker has a local host they can control in any way just as if they had control of a pc on the network. Can you access the camera remotely? yes. Can you access the camera locally from your own network? yes...there is your route.

 

[nayr]

yeah thats not a rebranded dahua, it appears only the poe fixed cameras they sell are...

looks like a foScam clone.

 

[fenderman]

yeah thats not a rebranded dahua, it appears only the poe fixed cameras they sell are...

looks like a foScam clone.

FYI, that camera runs dahua firmware and i believe its a special run from dahua for amcrest...its certainly not foscam..dahua does make a small indoor pt but i think its 720p.
EDIT. actually they have a 720p and 3mp version..IPC-A35
it doesnt look like the amcrest but...

 

[ipnoob]

No.. You cant configure it to be secure unless you are talented enough to write your own firmware and are confident there are no security holes. There is tons of info on this on the internet as well as this forum...once the camera is properly penetrated, the attacker has a local host they can control in any way just as if they had control of a pc on the network. Can you access the camera remotely? yes. Can you access the camera locally from your own network? yes...there is your route.

That's a lot higher level than I thought you were implying.

 

[fenderman]

That's a lot higher level than I thought you were implying.

There are hundreds of thousands of folks out there with the skill set to do this once the hole is made public...

 

[Rickenbackerman]

So I realized that wirecast only supports IP cameras if you buy their pro version, which is super expensive... Can anybody recommend a decent free encoding option? What about OBS studio? nayr, what do you use?

 

[nayr]

ffmpeg

 

[Rickenbackerman]

I downloaded ffmpeg but I haven't played around with it yet. I've been messing with OBS studio to see if I can get it to work. I can log in to the Amcrest cam using:

http://username:password@IP:port/cgi-bin/mjpg/video.cgi ?[channel=<channelno>]&subtype=1 ...but the video quality is awful. Any idea why?

Plus the wirecast software that I'm using with my old Logitech 500 USB cam is eating my CPU alive. And it seems youtube live creates an archive every time you live stream and uploads it to your channel! I don't want archives, I just want to stream live, and I haven't found any way to turn the archiving off.

There's gotta be a better way...

 

[nayr]

because your pulling mjpeg over http; you probably just forced your camera into mjpeg mode and will have to go back and change it to h264..

this is what I used on my raspberyPi

# cat youtubelive.sh

#!/bin/sh
ffmpeg -f lavfi -i anullsrc -rtsp_transport tcp -i 'rtsp://username:password@nvr:554/cam/realmonitor?channel=9&subtype=0' -tune zerolatency -vcodec libx264 -pix_fmt + -c:v copy -c:a aac -b:a 128k -ar 44100 -strict experimental  -f flv rtmp://a.rtmp.youtube.com/live2/XXXX-XXXX-XXXX-XXXX

replace username, password, ip address, channel, and all the X's with your YouTube token.

 

[Rickenbackerman]

Thanks nayr, but I'm assuming that's ffmpeg code? I'm just playing around w/ OBS studio. I'm a mechanical engineer and I work at NASA (really!), but I am no com-sci. I don't even know what h264 means. Starting to think I'm in over my head here and best to stick w/my old a$$ logitech 500 pile...

 

[nayr]

try using video stream:

rtsp://username:password@ip-address:554/cam/realmonitor?channel=0&subtype=0

im sure a nasa engineer can figure out how to use google.. if you put your mind to it.

you should find a configuration screen somewhat like this, and it'll probably be on MJPEG now.. which is ancient technology, switch it back to h264

 

[Kawboy12R]

h.264 is the compression standard used to encode the video stream. It's the most commonly supported and probably still the best all-round standard to use with some exceptions. MJPEG is ancient and a poor choice. h.265 is newer and makes smaller files (less bandwidth and storage space used) but takes a lot more CPU power, so unless you're recording to a standalone NVR that handles it seemlessly or are terribly short on storage space/bandwidth h.264 is a great choice. For your use streaming over the net most of the time, h.265 will cut down your bandwidth usage if you have a cap or enable higher fps/bitrates if you've got a small pipe to the 'net. I haven't a clue if ffmpeg does h.265 well or at all though. More research...

 

[Rickenbackerman]

I'm learning here. Slowly. OBS studio is out, it's too limited. I installed ffmpeg but only just started playing around with it.

Wondering if I should just bail on this camera since I can still return it. Amcrest claims it works with IE and firefox. Here's what I see on my LAN in IE:



The image is there but the interface is all buggy. And on firefox:



I'm seeing that damned message in my sleep. At least I can manage all of the settings though.

nayr, I'm only sort of barely starting to get the gist of the code you posted. If I ever get this thing streamed, it will be months from now. And I will need lots of HELP!!!!

BTW here's my YT turtle stream using my crappy old logitech:

rickenbackerman1 Live Stream - YouTube

 

[nayr]

sure your using IE and not Edge?

first shot looks like your not meeting some minimum width thing, looks like Amcrest fucked up the WebUI with there rebranding.. here is what my Dahua PTZ looks like on a thin width window:


I use SmartPSS mostly for viewing my cameras live, it should work with your Amcrest

resources are limited is probably because you have it still in MJPEG format and its overloading the camera, if you put it back to h264 and backoff the bitrate a bit, it'll get better.