Problems with DS-2CD2142FWD-I Camera (Mjpeg stream resolution, Target Cropping)

[RabenFlug]

Dear experts,

i just bougt a "european" DS-2CD2142FWD-I, what a lovely small peace of electronics. But there are some problems i cannot solve, maybe you can kick me to the right solution?

MJPEG Stream
The product description says: Video Compression: H.264/MJPEG/H.264+
MJPEG would be perfect for me, using an recording program that doesn't support H.264. But i can't change the video encoding from H.264 to MJPEG in the Main Stream. Thet just works in the Sub Stream with a max resolution of 640x480. What is this? Is there no way to stream with high resolution in mjpeg? 3fps would be more than enough.

The support told me to use: http://usernameassord@ip/Streaming/channels/ID/httppreview
Works OK, but just with 640*480

I get a highres picture when using http://usernameassord@ip/Streaming/Channels/101/picture
Hah, nice! Works fine for a single frame but throws a Error XML "Device busy" or "Device Error" when requesting more "frames" from this URL, is this a joke? What do I do wrong?

Target Cropping
Would be so helpful, but this function seems to be missing in the Firmware of this camera. All the blue sky on the picture, megabytes on the server... oh dear. Is there any way to enable the function in this camera? Or create a second stream with just a part of the main picture?

VLC Streaming
Last one
When i try to open the H.265 Stream in VLC (URL: rtsp://ip/video.h264the) the Player asks for password, then the time starts running but i just get a black image/no image. The same with the quicktime player. What do i do wrong here?
Oh man, maybe you can give me some hints on this points, that would help a lot.
Regards Chrsitian

 

[RabenFlug]

Think I will sell the cam, it doesn't work for me. I see no way to get a video MJPEG stream with a resolution > 640x360px from it. Very bad, just because the official Hikvision website said:

Video Compression: | H.264/MJPEG/H.264+

Does someone possibly has a tip, which Hikvision model (<4MP) delivers a high-resolution MJPEG stream and Target Cropping? I could not find a detailed product matrix, showing all features of the models.

 

[pozzello]

the manual refers to 'target cropping' Configuration> Advanced Configuration> Video/Audio> Target Cropping.
but maybe not available on that model?

the next closest thing to 'target cropping' is referred to as ROI (for 'aRea Of Interest').
Configuration> Advanced Configuration> Video/Audio> ROI
It doesn't actually crop the extra stuff, but encodes it with less bits/detail and keeps the ROI at full rez.

as for your rtsp url, that doesn't look quite right. see:
http://oversea-download.hikvision.com/uploadfile/RTSP Interfaces and Development Guide_2012.pdf

the mjpeg stream should be available at http://<IP>/Streaming/channels/1/preview
once you've configured the secondary stream to use mjpeg encoding.
you may also need to lower the bitrate on that stream to make it reliable...
at least, that worked here: https://www.ipcamtalk.com/showthread.php/5952-HIKVISION-camera-in-Imperihome

 

[RabenFlug]

Dear pozzello,
thanks for your reply. Now I came one step further with the camera. Unfortunately it doesn't have target cropping functionality.
Thanks for the hint with the "RIO", this is running now.

The Link rtsp://ip/video.h264 works on this device, even with VLC. My problem was that I tried to use the h264 stream with VPN, maybe the bandwith was to small. Unfortunately VLC didn't thow a error, the time ran but with a black picture. VLC h264 streaming works fine in the local network of the camera. Nevertheless the RTSP command reference is a interesting document!

The http://192.168.66.8/Streaming/channels/1/preview link works fine, but only with the 640x360px resolution.

I now decided to switch from my old recording software "Go1984" (which is pretty fine but does not support h264 in my licence) to Blue Iris. This works also fine on my slow server hardware AND supports h264 and https for external connections. Nice! I'm now in peace now with the hikvision cam, even if there's no high resolution MJPEG stream...

 

[nayr]

you'll be happier with h264, the recorded files are a fraction of the size that an MJPEG would be.

1080P @ 15FPS MJPEG for 24h = 324GB
1080P @ 15FPS H264 for 24h = 65GB

 

[pozzello]

cool. welcome to the BI bandwagon!

OH, and if you want to, you can pull an mjpeg stream from BI by having it re-encode the h264...

 

[bp2008]

For what its worth, the error from /Streaming/Channels/1/picture is a thing these cameras have done for a long-time. In my experience they are only capable of providing images at 1 FPS by this method and if you try to request more often than that, you get the error. Ironically, Blue Iris can provide MJPEG to 3rd party programs but now that you have Blue Iris you don't really need MJPEG. LOL

Anyway, welcome to the community of happy Blue Iris users.

 

[RabenFlug]

you'll be happier with h264, the recorded files are a fraction of the size that an MJPEG would be.

That's really much better, more space on the disk and so much less traffic on the LAN. I'll try to get my second Camera (IQEye) to Talk h264.
Only small pain: BI consumes more CPU, maybe for the h264 transcoding.

cool. welcome to the BI bandwagon!
OH, and if you want to, you can pull an mjpeg stream from BI by having it re-encode the h264...

Nice function, I tried this with VLC. It worked fine, but the CPU was melting...

For what its worth, the error from /Streaming/Channels/1/picture is a thing these cameras have done for a long-time. In my experience they are only capable of providing images at 1 FPS by this method and if you try to request more often than that, you get the error.

I have tried to set my old software to request only 1pfs, but this solution was very unstable, after some frames the cam was offended and just gave me the error back.

Ironically, Blue Iris can provide MJPEG to 3rd party programs but now that you have Blue Iris you don't really need MJPEG. LOL

The old dilemma


I'm really happy with BI. The old Software (go1984) was about 260€ (~290USD) for a very limited version:
- No h264
- no ssl/https (what is a mess in the post snowden time)
The full version (ultimate) costs about 1490,-€ (~1.670USD), no option just to decure my private backyard.

Anyway, welcome to the community of happy Blue Iris users.

 

[bp2008]

I'm really happy with BI. The old Software (go1984) was about 260€ (~290USD) for a very limited version:
- No h264
- no ssl/https (what is a mess in the post snowden time)
The full version (ultimate) costs about 1490,-€ (~1.670USD), no option just to decure my private backyard.

Blue Iris doesn't support HTTPS natively either. You have to use a 3rd party app like Stunnel. This is common enough now that the mobile apps specifically support https connections even though Blue Iris does not

 

[nayr]

Enable Direct to Disk recording so BI does not have to transcode your h264 stream.