Stream Live TV into Blue Iris?

TonyR

IPCT Contributor
Joined
Jul 15, 2014
Messages
16,432
Reaction score
38,152
Location
Alabama

While looking up info for another post, I ran across this:
J-Tech Digital H.264 Encoder Supports RTSP, RTP, RTMP, HTTP, UDP Protocol and ONVIF for IPTV, Live Broadcast, Youtube

Takes HDMI in, encodes to RTSP (among others) with main stream and 3 more substreams, all with adjustable bit rates.

Review and demo ==>> here

It's compatible with VLC player as well. Now my interested has been peaked. I wonder if I can put Live TV satellite weather into it and stream into my Blue Iris server as a camera? Then I could view anywhere using browser and BI's UI3 or on my Blue Iris iPhone app?

Hmmmm.... where's that jar with $200 worth of coins I've been collecting for 5 years?

TonyR, A moment ago Edit Delete Report
 

tangent

IPCT Contributor
Joined
May 12, 2016
Messages
4,338
Reaction score
3,519
but why?

There are better hardware options and I see no reason to use blue iris to record stuff like this, there are better free software options too.
 

TonyR

IPCT Contributor
Joined
Jul 15, 2014
Messages
16,432
Reaction score
38,152
Location
Alabama
but why?

There are better hardware options and I see no reason to use blue iris to record stuff like this, there are better free software options too.
I just ran across this and thought I'd share, as there was another thread that leaned this way. For me, I wasn't planning on recording just viewing along with BI cams.
 
Last edited:

TonyR

IPCT Contributor
Joined
Jul 15, 2014
Messages
16,432
Reaction score
38,152
Location
Alabama
Bump.
@tangent , You stated in May that "....There are better hardware options and I see no reason to use blue iris to record stuff like this, there are better free software options too."

Can you point me to examples, both H/W and S/W?
 

tangent

IPCT Contributor
Joined
May 12, 2016
Messages
4,338
Reaction score
3,519
There are probably things you could pull from the internet directly into blue iris. I think there's a thread or two on the subject.

I was thinking more of traditional hdmi capture devices that would connect directly to your computer by a cable.
 
Last edited:

bp2008

Staff member
Joined
Mar 10, 2014
Messages
12,666
Reaction score
14,005
Location
USA
I have a couple of Chinese HDMI encoders ("Oupree" brand) similar to that one from J-Tech digital. They're probably all made by one or two companies and rebranded. You could set one up to stream to Blue Iris, no problem, but I don't know if they will prove to be reliable enough. Mine needs to be rebooted fairly frequently or else it ends up outputting crazy stuff like a strong pink tint on everything. And often, the set-top box I plug into it decides 1080i is no longer a supported output and it falls back to 720p or worse. Lastly, if your plan was to set it and forget it, you would probably have trouble getting a set-top box to not go to sleep every few hours without user input.
 

bp2008

Staff member
Joined
Mar 10, 2014
Messages
12,666
Reaction score
14,005
Location
USA
Any progress with this.. like to see what can be pulled from internet to bi.. i know we did the radar before
Just about anything can be pulled from the internet to BI depending on how much work you are willing to put into it. It is easiest to pull images that are served by http from a URL that never changes and doesn't require authentication.
 

bp2008

Staff member
Joined
Mar 10, 2014
Messages
12,666
Reaction score
14,005
Location
USA
This week I got one of those J-Tech H.264 encoders as linked by @TonyR in the OP. Among other spec improvements, the J-Tech is capable of 32 Mbps encoding while my old box draws the line at 12 Mbps. It should have had a clear quality advantage over my old Unisheen BM1000HDMI (same hardware and firmware as Oupree OPR-NH100). It turned out to be the opposite result.

Somehow, they managed to make it worse despite the bit rate being 2.6x higher. See these snapshots I captured, both from exactly the same frame from the same video source.

J-Tech @ 32 Mbps:
compare01_Jtech.jpg


Unisheen BM1000HDMI @ 12 Mbps:
compare01_BM1000HDMI.jpg


It is easiest to compare if you open both images in new tabs to toggle between them. Take note of the red shirt, the plaid shirt, and the wood paneling of the wall behind the characters. All are markedly worse on the J-Tech stream.

Those with a keen eye may also notice that the J-Tech output, despite being the same 1920x1080 resolution, has very slightly stretched the video vertically and cut off a few pixels at the very bottom edge of the video. I believe I can explain how that happened. H.264 encoders want dimensions that are divisible by 16. 1080 is not divisible by 16. 1088 is, and therefore most "1080" video gets padded with 8 extra garbage pixels at the bottom. The stream comes out at 1088 pixels high, the bottom 8 of which are garbage. Those pixels are cropped off by the player so you don't see them. You can see plenty of examples of this in UI3 (Blue Iris) at different H.264 resolutions if you use the "NaCl" player option, because that player doesn't do the cropping. Anyway, I believe the J-Tech device got this part wrong. I think that instead of adding 8 padding pixels, they just stretched the 1080 video source to 1088. This stretching reduces quality, distorts the video slightly, and results in lost information once those 8 pixels are cropped off the bottom by the player.

J-Tech support didn't have any new firmware for the device, so today it is on its way back to Amazon.
 

TonyR

IPCT Contributor
Joined
Jul 15, 2014
Messages
16,432
Reaction score
38,152
Location
Alabama
Somehow, they managed to make it worse despite the bit rate being 2.6x higher.
Yep, you're right......a noticeable difference.

it is on its way back to Amazon.
Can't say that I blame you, although I could be more forgiving if the price was half of what it is.

Thanks for posting your experience with this specific unit.

EDIT @1639 CT: Wow, I never really pursued looking at any of these hardware H.264 encoders; that being said, I now am of the opinion that $200 for the J-Tech is not much compared to most being $1200 to $2500 ! You get what you pay for I'm sure and since I'm not professionally broadcasting I could likely live with it's "shortcomings".
 
Last edited:

bp2008

Staff member
Joined
Mar 10, 2014
Messages
12,666
Reaction score
14,005
Location
USA
Wow, I never really pursued looking at any of these hardware H.264 encoders; that being said, I now am of the opinion that $200 for the J-Tech is not much compared to most being $1200 to $2500 ! You get what you pay for I'm sure and since I'm not professionally broadcasting I could likely live with it's "shortcomings".
Yes, I discovered them in late 2014 and bought one then for $200. Bought another just like it in 2015 for the same price so I could hook up to a second video source. Then later in 2015 I picked up a $400 model, OPR-NH100P, capable of H.264 and H.265 @ 60 FPS. It turned out that couldn't deinterlace properly. Over the next year or so I tried about 4 different firmware versions on it with different problems in each one. Eventually it ended up in a bin in my garage, basically a waste of $400.

In 2016 I tried a z3stream model from Amazon for $400. It fell short of expectations as well, but since I got it from Amazon I was able to return it easily. Now in 2018 I decided to try J-Tech's model because I have a few of their other HDMI products and thought surely they wouldn't put their brand on a piece of junk. I might have liked it too, but having an older and better encoder to compare with side-by-side makes me a very harsh critic. There are certainly worse, and probably better encoders out there to spend $200 (or less) on. Still, most of them (including the J-Tech one) come from the same chinese company and are just rebranded with firmware changes that basically amount to a minor restyle, and my faith in that company's competence at this point is somewhere between zmodo and sunba.
 

bigbillsd

Young grasshopper
Joined
Aug 6, 2018
Messages
35
Reaction score
6
Location
Pearl Harbor
@TonyR Look at SageTV DVR and SD's HDhomerun tuners. SageTV is a complete DVR that is now free. Google released the source into the public domain a couple years back. Prior to Google buying them many years ago it was commercial DVR software. Also, Silicon Dust makes their HD Homerun tuning devices. I've been using them for years for recording OTA. I have not tried their CableCard tuners, but they have been around a long time too. There are also a lot of Addin's that extend its functionality to do quite a bit more than just TV.

You can also watch anything you recorded over the internet using their placeshifter app.
 
Top