Viewing DVR on Roku?

KBRENNY

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I have an Annke DW81KD 8 ch DVR. While I can view the DVR on my android phone and PC I wanted to know if anyone has figured out a way to view it on a Roku TV? It would be convenient to be able to switch to a screen showing what the DVR monitor is showing on the TV in my bedroom at night. I have looked into wireless HDMI transmitter / receiver kits but wasn't looking at spending that much money. Roku limits the Apps you are allowed to install so Annke vision is not an app I can install. Is there a less expesive option to using a wireless HDMI transmitter to view on a TV with Roku such as an app or other method?
 

concord

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There are a couple Roku apps that can be used for displaying cameras, IP Cam Viewer, CamDiggity for example, however not sure if you can access your specific DVR cams. With Blue Iris software, we are able to view the cameras via IP Cam Viewer, see the following thread. Note there is a free version of IP Cam Viewer and it appears CamDiggity is free. The one issue would be if your DVR can stream your cams via http (mjpeg, ONVIF) or RTSP. If you need a plug-in browser to view your cams, then I doubt these would work.

You could use a HDMI to CAT6/CAT6 to HDMI or HDMI to COAX/COAX to HDMI converters, but you'll need to run a cable



 
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KBRENNY

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I tried to use 2 IP camera viewing apps on the Roku last night but neither would ever show anything but a loading screen. I looked through all the information on the DVR network page but cant find a TCP port number. Running cat6 or coax isn't really an option. I was really hoping for a fix to view them on Roku because I have 6 TV's here and all of them except 1 has a Roku Ultra hooked up to it and the one that doesn't has Roku built in.
 

KBRENNY

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From what I have read Roku does not support RTSP. This may be my problem. The Annke DVR I am using may be the best thing to replace to create a solution to this problem. I just installed a WD purple 2TB HDD in the DVR. Is there another brand DVR that would work with my system to allow it being viewed over the IP Camera Viewer app on Roku?
I have 8 cameras 2mp connected via a wired BNC connection to the DVR.
The DVR is wired to the internet via ethernet and not wifi.
Also it would be nice to find a DVR that would work in my situation that I could purchase without a HDD as I just installed a new one in the current DVR.
 

KBRENNY

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I received an email back today from Annke. According to the email my DVR (DW81KD) will not work with the IP Camera Viewer APP. While I don't know this for a fact, their tech support team does not have a solution for my system. While it may be possible to get it to work and the Annke Tech Support is not aware of it, this forum will probably be my only chance of finding that solution. I have been weighing my options and come to the conclusion that, if there is no possible way to make my DVR work with the IP Camera Viewer app, it may be more cost effective to just replace the DVR with one that is more user friendly with the IP Camera Viewer APP. Can anyone tell me of an 8 channel DVR that uses BNC connectors for the cameras that will work well with the IP Camera Viewer APP? I would like to be able to view channel zero, which would display the same thing as the monitor directly attached to the DVR. I will be paying for the PRO version of the APP once I can get it to work, mostly for the screen saver feature which I really like on the Roku. Having the APP work with my camera system is the simplest, cleanest, and easiest way to accomplish my goal. Replacing all 6 of the Roku's isn't an option as we use HULU for our live TV and the previous Amazon Fire Cubes are beyond terrible with HULU Live. The Rokus have been working great with Hulu Live, not a single issue. From what I understand Blue Iris would have to be installed on a PC that is left on all the time which I was really trying to avoid. On my DVR, in the settings, there is a setting to enable ONVIF which I have checked but I do not know if that setting is "sticking" because I do not have a SSL attached. I need to do more research into creating my secure certificate and signing it to my current DVR. Any help you can provide will be greatly appreciated.
 

KBRENNY

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I just tried to create a secure certificate and realized that is probably only has one benefit. It would allow the URL of the stream to start with HTTPS instead of HTTP. This is probably not causing the lack of cooperation between the DVR and APP.
On the screen with the option to enable ONVIF there is a section where you can add a user by creating a new USER NAME and PASSWORD, it also asks if the user is: MEDIA USER, OPERATOR, or ADMINISTRATOR. Which of these 3 is the best selection for the task at hand?
 

wittaj

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Don't discount Blue Iris so fast, especially if you are going to buy another DVR with BNC connectors that may or may not work with Roku.

You could use your existing DVR to feed the cameras into Blue Iris.

Do like many of us do and purchase a refurbished computer that is a business class computer that have come off lease. The one I bought I kid you not I could not tell that it was a refurbished unit - not a speck of dust or dents or scratches on it. It appeared to me like everything was replaced and I would assume just the motherboard with the intel processor is what was from the original unit. I went with the lowest end processor on the WIKI list as it was the cheapest and it runs my system fine.

A member here just last month found a refurbished 4th generation for less than $150USD that came with Win10 PRO, 16GB RAM, and a 1TB drive. More than sufficient to run what you have. Probably can't get a DVR much cheaper than that. And then this future proofs you if you decide to upgrade cameras later.

A DVR is an underpowered computer and with the Blue Iris computer you turn off Windows updates and the uptime will be comparable to a DVR. If you are concerned about power consumption, according to my kill-o-watt meter, my computer for BI uses less than my DVR does. In fact, for the true test, I actually still have an old DVR going just for kicks and backup until it dies. We had a power outage recently and the BI computer lasted the entire outage on backup power and the NVR did not - two separate backup units but the exact same model purchased at same time. You run the computer without the monitor on and BI runs as a service and you don't run anything else on it and the power isn't really as much as you think.
 

KBRENNY

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How does the DVR connect to the PC with BI?
Would I still maintain control of each camera independently?
Without a power backup, what happens in the event of a power outage with the computer rebooting and such?
I'm not concerned with the power usage or cost of computer as much as space.
Where all the camera wiring comes out of the wall there is no place to put a computer.
I had to get creative with the DVR and monitor mount.

On a side note:

I Finally got something. In my DVR settings, on the screen where you enable ONVIF, I never created a new / unique USERNAME and PASSWORD. I did that tonight.

In the APP, when I entered the new username and password along with the DVR's IP address, the ONVIF auto config worked and pulled up a snapshot URL. The snapshot URL it created was:

/onvif/snapshot/101

This URL was of camera 1, not the camera I wanted, but it did come up in the test screen. I also pulled up in full screen and updated about every 30 seconds. Then after about 15 minutes it stopped working. When I tried ONVIF auto config again it said "user is not authorized" and would not let me back in with that username and password.

I believe I now need the MJPEG URL to make this work.

How do I find the MJPEG URL? Where do I look?

Also, how do I select a different camera number?

I am sure the URL I need will be different than the one ONVIF Auto Config came up with for camera 1 but I saw something work for the first time tonight.
 

wittaj

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In BI, you select add camera and then type in the IP address of the DVR and the username and password. Then select find/inspect and when that is done, then go halfway down that screen and there is a camera number, so you just select say camera 1. Then just copy that camera when you add the next one and then change camera 1 to camera 2. Many of us have a DVR or NVR running in parallel with BI and feed the stream to BI in this manner.

BI has a trial and you could give a try and see if it accomplishes what you want.

Yes, BI does not control the camera settings - that is done within the camera itself, or in your case through the DVR.

You setup the computer to automatically restart if power is lost - basically like a power button always on. My BI computer boots up way faster than the DVR does after a power outage or reboot.

You can place the BI computer anywhere you have an Ethernet port. Could be next to the DVR or in the basement or where ever you want really. Don't even need a monitor. Most of us run it without a monitor (headless) and remote into on another computer or tablet.

You could even do it via wifi but that is not recommended as these cams do not buffer video like a streaming service, so it can quickly bog down your wifi. But for testing to see if it works, you could certainly try that if you only have a wifi laptop.
 

KBRENNY

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Thanks for that info, I may have to look into that and possibly add a PC.
This house wasn't wired for ethernet as it is 20 years old and we just got 20mbps service here 5 years ago.

I just enabled RTSP and it seems to be doing better.
Snapshot URL on Roku updates every 5 to 7 seconds.
My biggest problem now is the snapshot URL is /onvif/snapshot/101 and it only brings up camera 1.
I have tried changing the 101 to 001 and 100 and still no luck with finding the snapshot URL for the other 7 cameras.
Any ideas?
 

KBRENNY

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After all this effort I finally got it to work. My only problem now is limited bandwidth at my house. We only get 20MBPS here and that's the fastest that is offered. The 2 TV's that would be using this the most have Roku's that are connected via Wifi. If I start streaming the camera DVR on one TV via Wi-Fi it almost kills the internet speed for everything else. With my wife working from home with an ever changing schedule this wouldn't work. We barely had enough internet before, this would kill it enough she would get booted off the system and that is not an option. My next option is a wireless HDMI transmitter that supports 2 wireless HDMI receivers. It wouldnt have to be the greatest picture quality or resolution. Does anyone have any suggestions?
 

wittaj

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Yep, a wifi problem. Wifi routers are not made to stream "real-time" surveillance videos. The difference is surveillance cameras do not buffer like streaming services, so Roku can work because it may buffer 30 seconds ahead and can be proven by unplugging the router and it will still stream for a period of time and these cams will lose their signal immediately.
 

looney2ns

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After all this effort I finally got it to work. My only problem now is limited bandwidth at my house. We only get 20MBPS here and that's the fastest that is offered. The 2 TV's that would be using this the most have Roku's that are connected via Wifi. If I start streaming the camera DVR on one TV via Wi-Fi it almost kills the internet speed for everything else. With my wife working from home with an ever changing schedule this wouldn't work. We barely had enough internet before, this would kill it enough she would get booted off the system and that is not an option. My next option is a wireless HDMI transmitter that supports 2 wireless HDMI receivers. It wouldnt have to be the greatest picture quality or resolution. Does anyone have any suggestions?
Bet if you hard wire your wifes computer to the router with an ethernet cable, she'd not have any issue's with slow downs at all.
 
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