ISPY PTZ help

[danwhite99]

Two separate issues, two different cameras, both cameras from China. 1 is a 10X zoom the other 20X Zoom nice cameras PTZ mini dome type. The issue is loading them into ISpy. I am able to view video in iSpy but can't for the life of me figure out PTZ. I have downloaded Fiddler ran it through the web pages look at all that it says it's doing tried to make sense of that with the XML file included in iSpy. I even compared it to cameras where as the PTZ is working in ISpy but cannot figure out what lines to use or how to edit them. Is there anyone that is patient enough to guide me some place where an idiot can figure this out. The other issue might be simpler, using ISPY if I load the camera using ONVIF, I consistently receive the error that my login information is incorrect. I know that it's not. Anyone could direct me to some reading or video or anything it would be greatly appreciated

I have played around with AxxonNext. Great job installing camera (including PTZ using ONVIF) but very difficult to figure out motion tracking.

thanks in advance
Dan:redface-new:

 

[mcdiddly]

Regarding issue #2, I have also recently tried iSpy's ONVIF with a Huisun 10x zoom, PTZ camera but it would appear that there is bug in iSpy that prevents it working. I am able to use ONVIF Device Manager to control the camera perfectly, so the camera seems fine. I used Wireshark to trapped the request message from iSpy to the camera and the camera's response; I also replayed the iSpy request via Chrome's Advanced REST Client tool and received what appeared to be a valid response from the camera. Looking at the iSpy logs it would appear it is unable to parse the XML response, perhaps because of a missing "utils" module. I have tried to create a 'bug' message on the iSpy community board, but there seem to be no-one moderating / releasing it. For now I am using ONVIF Device Manager to re-point + zoom the camera, with the video feed being displayed in iSpy.

If I have any luck getting the camera to work more fully then I will post back here.

Jonathan

 

[danwhite99]

jonathan
Thanks so much for sharing.
I really like ISPY but am a little disappointed by the number of answers compared to the number of views on the support forum. Have you tried AxxonNext (it's free). controls and video are easily installed using ONVIF but tracking & recording are a challenge (at least for me)
Thanks for the info & keep me informed. I'll do the same.
Dan

 

[mcdiddly]

Hi Dan,

A little update... I received another, different brand, cheapie PTZ camera yesterday and tried that with iSpy + ONVIF... and it worked first time. So I ran some more Wireshark logs and it looks like the Huisun's firmware may be a little badly-behaved i.e. iSpy is asking the camera for "GetSystemDateAndTime" and the camera returns "unauthorised", whereas (from what I have read elsewhere) this request shouldn't require authentication. Elsewhere on this site I noticed a comment about Huisun + Blue Iris which said "The ONVIF implementation is not correct for the camera, but I have made a work-around for the next release. It should allow the get date without authentication ... the date is needed for authentication! A catch-22. / Thanks / Ken", so I'm wondering if that's also the issue with iSpy i.e. it's not expecting the camera to refuse its request for the Date-Time, but it needs that timestamp information for the subsequent request for information about the camera.

I noticed that iSpy has written the config information about the new (i.e. working) camera to "objects.xml" in my C:\Users\<xxxxx>\AppData\Roaming\iSpy\XML directory, so I may experiment with backing that up and manually editing it to see if will then chat to the Huisun, assuming that it's just the network discovery that currently fails. I will post back how that goes.

Thanks for the tip re AxxonNext - I will take a look. However my setup is probably somewhat atypical as I have rural cameras pushing out (via FTP) static images every 30 minutes to an offsite server (something the Foscams can do with their onboard firmware), so the main features of iSpy I'm currently experimenting with are (a) improved FTP [because the Foscams do have a habit of deleting slow uploads, hmmm], and (b) remote PTZ [as the cameras are a couple of hundred miles away!].

cheers
Jonathan

 

[danwhite99]

Thans for the update. I have been able to install my china cam with Axxon & blue iris using ONVIF so I know its compatible. I just prefer ISPY for its tracking ability. So if I could install via ONVIF THAT WOULD BE SWEET.
You sound like a programmer or at least someone who knows more tham the avg joe. Keep me updated. I do appreciate your efforts.

 

[mcdiddly]

Hi Dan

I spent a few more hours tinkering at the weekend and my conclusion is that that the camera's firmware is not currently 100% ONVIF compliant, and that's what is causing iSpy to fail. I found a copy of the ONVIF standards online, and the "GetSystemDateAndTime" service function should be "PRE_AUTH" i.e. it should be possible to send a request to the camera for this information without providing any user authentication details (userid + password)... When I send such a request to my new non-Huisun camera it responds correctly with details about its date and time settings, but when I send an identical call to the Huisun, it returns a "not authorised" exception.

I'm guessing that Blue Iris and Axxon may have worked around the problem by sending user authentication details with their service call (certainly the comment above from the Blue Iris developer indicates he changed his code to do this), so to get the combination to work with iSpy my best guess is that either (a) the camera firmware needs a fix, or (b) iSpy would need to be modified. Not sure how likely either solution is. I will drop a couple of emails to the camera manufacturer and iSpy, but I don't fancy my chances.

On the plus side, I found that the Huisun appears to support some PSIA commands, albeit only a very small subset from what I've found (PSIA is a competing standard with ONVIF). So I might tinker with this over the coming weeks.
Jonathan

 

[mcdiddly]

Quick update - I've exchanged emails with the iSpy developers and provided some information on the problems with this camera and its non-standard ONVIF implementation. I will post back with the outcome.

 

[danwhite99]

Jonathan

thanks for all you effort. I am convinced it's an Ispy issue , hopefully someone there will take a look at it. I did download "Milestone XPotect"
wow, way to complicated for me. (free & it did install the cams)

Thanks again.