Suggestions for camera(s) for weather - looking for 360° view

Ri22o

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I like putting up weather cameras and sharing on YouTube live. Here is one I put up a few years ago. Since a microphone would receive nothing more than wind noise, I rebroadcast the national weather service radio for this area. This camera is a Dahua 4K PTZ with a raspberry pi used as the YouTube live server.

That's awesome. Once I get the roof cams up, maybe I will do something like this. We live in a split zone and sometimes weather will be on the way and then just go around us, so it might be interesting for some to watch roll in.
 

TRLcam

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That's awesome. Once I get the roof cams up, maybe I will do something like this. We live in a split zone and sometimes weather will be on the way and then just go around us, so it might be interesting for some to watch roll in.
This camera gets a few views during a normal day. But, when storms roll in I'll see 200+ viewing. The most views though are on fourth of July evening and night.
 

Starglow

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I like putting up weather cameras and sharing on YouTube live. Here is one I put up a few years ago. Since a microphone would receive nothing more than wind noise, I rebroadcast the national weather service radio for this area. This camera is a Dahua 4K PTZ with a raspberry pi used as the YouTube live server.

I don't do this, but my Sunba P636V2 PTZ is capable of directly livestreaming on YouTube. :)
 

pyspilf

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Very nice @TRLcam !! - I just had a look on the youtube channel. Do you have the camera on a patrol routine moving around all the time? How long has it been going for?
 

pyspilf

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That's very good to hear! I read somewhere else that leaving a PTZ on touring presets like that may cause premature wear & tear, but your case seems to prove it may not always be the case. Probably will also be a function of how well the PTZ mechanisms are built.
 

TRLcam

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I don't do this, but my Sunba P636V2 PTZ is capable of directly livestreaming on YouTube. :)
Most newer IP cameras are capable now of streaming RTMP to YouTube live. That really makes it easy. The only problem with that is if the stream quits, it does not automatically restart. Using a separate YouTube server can monitor the bandwidth and restart the encoder if the stream quits. Plus it gives you the ability to take internet audio like the weather service radio and encode it with the livestream.
 

TRLcam

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That's very good to hear! I read somewhere else that leaving a PTZ on touring presets like that may cause premature wear & tear, but your case seems to prove it may not always be the case. Probably will also be a function of how well the PTZ mechanisms are built.
Yeah, I have read that too. I have 30+ PTZ cameras in the field for customers and myself, some for over ten years, with no problems caused by the PTZ assembly wearing out.
 

Mike A.

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Yeah, I have read that too. I have 30+ PTZ cameras in the field for customers and myself, some for over ten years, with no problems caused by the PTZ assembly wearing out.
Beyond physical wear, some of them seem to have a coded limit to the number of cycles. I know that I've seen a few here report hitting it. e.g.:
 

pyspilf

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Kind of programmed obsolescence I guess, to avoid claims when they break... having said that, I am a photographer and I would have a right go at Nikon if my camera stopped working when the shutter reached the 200k cycles it's rated for... it just goes on until it eventually fails, often a whole lot later than the rated number
 

TRLcam

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Beyond physical wear, some of them seem to have a coded limit to the number of cycles. I know that I've seen a few here report hitting it. e.g.:
I remember that forum thread. I'm a Dahua star dealer and contacted Dahua when I read that. They denied the camera has a built in counter that will disable PTZ at a set number of cycles.
 

Mike A.

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I remember that forum thread. I'm a Dahua star dealer and contacted Dahua when I read that. They denied the camera has a built in counter that will disable PTZ at a set number of cycles.
Interesting. Pretty sure I saw that Andy @EMPIRETECANDY confirmed that at one point when commenting on another case but I can't find the post now. Not sure which model/region/firmware/etc. that might apply to. Doesn't seem to have affected yours.

Another example where Dauha apparently quoted a price to patch a fix:

 

Ri22o

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That refurb site is addictive LOL
There are others I want to buy, but wouldn't be able to deploy them any time soon, so I let them be.

I don't need to add these sky and neighborhood overview cams, but every day it makes more and more sense.
 
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Scruffers

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Aside from that gigantic weather cam, the DH-PTZ1A225-HNR-XA at 2mp is a pure 360, I'm spotting towers at 6 miles away in dense weather and fear that people looking at 4 and 8k stats are missing out.
 

Ri22o

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Looking forward to pics/clips!!!
I started getting the rig put together. Here is my post with info.

 
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