Emby with home cameras

[yermak 1]

Hi all,

 

I found use case which might be useful for someone.

 

Emby out of the box supports connectivity with home cameras, and it could be done with couple of simple steps.

 

1. You need to create m3u playlist, containing something like:

#EXTINF:-1 group-title="Cam",Camera 1

rtsp://192.168.1.1:554/onvif1

#EXTINF:-1 group-title="Cam",Camera 2

rtsp://192.168.1.2:554/onvif1

 

2. upload your cam.m3u to the emby server.

3. Add live TV via M3U Tuner, pointing to your file.

4. Go to live TV and enjoy.

5. Optionally add your cams to specific collections.

 

Note: URL for you camera might be different, use documentation or external tool to find it.

Edited January 17, 2019 by yermak

[Luke 42077]

Hi, yes great tip thanks. Most people don't actually realize that import their camera feed with this.

[yermak 1]

BTW, firstly I have tried with IPTV plugin, which seemed more strigthforward solution.

However, it caused transcoding of the stream both - audio (which is ok, as my cam stream PC) and video, which with "non-ideal" video quality of picture from cheap home camera was not that great (even after reducting CRF), and CPU usage was quite high.

 

While Live TV transcodes just PCM audio, CPU is almost idle.

Minor note, all Live TV channels are mixed together, which I fix with Collections anyway.

[Luke 42077]

Thanks for the feedback. Yes I'm sure playback using the iptv channel could be improved.

[clarkss12 304]

 

Hi all,

 

I found use case which might be useful for someone.

 

Emby out of the box supports connectivity with home cameras, and it could be done with couple of simple steps.

 

1. You need to create m3u playlist, containing something like:

#EXTINF:-1 group-title="Cam",Camera 1

rtsp://192.168.1.1:554/onvif1

#EXTINF:-1 group-title="Cam",Camera 2

rtsp://192.168.1.2:554/onvif1

 

2. upload your cam.m3u to the emby server.

3. Add live TV via M3U Tuner, pointing to your file.

4. Go to live TV and enjoy.

5. Optionally add your cams to specific collections.

 

Note: URL for you camera might be different, use documentation or external tool to find it.

 

What does this mean "2. upload your cam.m3u to the emby server." and how do you do it??  

thanks.

 

Edit: I created an m3u file, and going into the live TV section of the server, using the M3U tuner section, it does NOT find my M3U file..........

Edited January 17, 2019 by clarkss12

[yermak 1]

Hi,

 

Note: I run emby under Linux, so if you do it to then to upload it you can use WinSCP program or any ftp client.

If you run emby on local PC then just give path to m3u.

 

In file or url input field just give path to m3u.

 

 

 

P.S. when you created m3u playlist, I assume you used correct IP addresses and port. To detect them you could use something like ONVIF Device Manager - it actually generated me link for m3u. For that I had to connect 1 camera to ethernet - it did not pick it up over wifi (but, I have quite complex network configuration).

Please also note some cctv cams may require username and password in url.

Edited January 17, 2019 by yermak

[Sammy 790]

@@Luke @@chef

 

Whatever happened to the IPCam / Security Cameras Plugin?

 

Sent from my SM-G960U1 using Tapatalk

Edited January 18, 2019 by Sammy

[clarkss12 304]

Hi,

 

Note: I run emby under Linux, so if you do it to then to upload it you can use WinSCP program or any ftp client.

If you run emby on local PC then just give path to m3u.

 

In file or url input field just give path to m3u.

 

 

 

P.S. when you created m3u playlist, I assume you used correct IP addresses and port. To detect them you could use something like ONVIF Device Manager - it actually generated me link for m3u. For that I had to connect 1 camera to ethernet - it did not pick it up over wifi (but, I have quite complex network configuration).

Please also note some cctv cams may require username and password in url.

Thanks, I will try that.  The M3U file that I created does open the live cam view using VLC, but it does require a user name and password.

 

Edit: got it added to my Live TV screen, but when I click on it, is says not "No compatible streams are currently available. 

Edited January 18, 2019 by clarkss12

[PrincessClevage 175]

I tried this but in the end went with the Surveillance plugin as it makes a clear tab separation for cameras and not something that should be listed in tv area or collections. Cleaner, but that is just my opinion

[Spaceboy 2573]

I tried this but in the end went with the Surveillance plugin as it makes a clear tab separation for cameras and not something that should be listed in tv area or collections. Cleaner, but that is just my opinion

where would one find this surveillance plugin please? I don’t see it in the catalog

[Luke 42077]

I would use the iptv plugin instead as it's the same thing

[PrincessClevage 175]

I would use the iptv plugin instead as it's the same thing

Doesnt iptv add Chanel’s/streams to tv section in client?

[Luke 42077]

It adds to the home screen.

[yermak 1]

I would use the iptv plugin instead as it's the same thing

as i said - i tried, but it caused transcoding. it could be specific for my cam.

[yermak 1]

Thanks, I will try that.  The M3U file that I created does open the live cam view using VLC, but it does require a user name and password.

 

Edit: got it added to my Live TV screen, but when I click on it, is says not "No compatible streams are currently available. [/size]

well, my cam clearly produces h264, thus it worked nicely. Yours might use different container or codec.

as for vlc, not sure if it supports rtsp protocol.

[Spaceboy 2573]

I would use the iptv plugin instead as it's the same thing

i tried the iptv plugin using rstp format. the stream is fine in vlc but in emby is about 75% pixelated:

 

[chef 3810]

looking at security cameras now, what cameras do you have/recommend?

Just make sure they use onvif and you are set to go.

[yermak 1]

Look to beginning of thread - what i have found - iptv plugin does full transcoding of h264 stream.

It does not just repackage the stream to another container it transcode the full video stream, thus if you still want to do this and have enough cpu power - you could just reduce CRF value in transcoding settings.

 

 

i tried the iptv plugin using rstp format. the stream is fine in vlc but in emby is about 75% pixelated:

 

[Spaceboy 2573]

Look to beginning of thread - what i have found - iptv plugin does full transcoding of h264 stream.

It does not just repackage the stream to another container it transcode the full video stream, thus if you still want to do this and have enough cpu power - you could just reduce CRF value in transcoding settings.

hi, i tried changing crf to 18 and 28, it didnt make any difference.

 

@@Luke, why is this transcoding? the camera records to mp4, stats for nerds says its transcoding due to unsupported container. if it needs to transcode what settings can get a good picture? this is a good quality camera and works fine in the native web player and vlc

[yermak 1]

Lower CRF will give better quality.

 

https://trac.ffmpeg.org/wiki/Encode/H.264

 

hi, i tried changing crf to 18 and 28, it didnt make any difference.

 

@@Luke, why is this transcoding? the camera records to mp4, stats for nerds says its transcoding due to unsupported container. if it needs to transcode what settings can get a good picture? this is a good quality camera and works fine in the native web player and vlc

[Spaceboy 2573]

Lower CRF will give better quality.

 

https://trac.ffmpeg.org/wiki/Encode/H.264

thanks but changing it to a lower value made no difference. The help on the transcoding page suggests anything less than 18 is “insane” [emoji3]

[Luke 42077]

Please attach the information requested in how to report a media playback issue:

https://emby.media/community/index.php?/topic/739-how-to-report-a-problem/

Thanks.

[seacoug 2]

In the hopes I can help somebody else I will give you my experience with My Q-See set-up. 

 

For me the IPTV plug-in worked better than the M3U method as some of my clients choked on the latter (xbox one).  

 

Also I couldn't get my main stream to work and had to use a secondary stream that didn't have the highest resolution 

 

So for my Q-see the successful command was this where subtype had to be 01 for (D1 CCTV resolution 704X480).

 

The inability to get the 720p at 25 frames per second (subtype 00) could be a limitation of the NVR

 

rtsp://192.168.1.10:554/cam/realmonitor?channel=4&subtype=01&authbasic=ZnJhbls6Z29jb1Vn=

 

Just my experience FWIW -

 

Really like this IPTV plug-in, thanks for it! 

 

Thanks 

 

seacoug

[Luke 42077]

Thanks for the feedback.

[Spaceboy 2573]

Please attach the information requested in how to report a media playback issue:

https://emby.media/community/index.php?/topic/739-how-to-report-a-problem/

Thanks.

the stream is a standard rtsp from a unifi camera. it plays fine in the native app and in vlc.

 

server and ffmpeg log attached

server.txt iptv plugin.txt

Edited March 4, 2019 by Spaceboy