Video feed devices

[rhanson]

What kind of video feed is the app looking for? I've tried the following to no avail:

- http streams of mjpeg, mpeg2 transport stream, h264
- rtsp streams to camera or NVR

Are there frame rate, size or other limits?

Authentication has been disabled for the purposes of testing.

All I get is a "Can't play this video." error. Most of them play on the Chrome browser on the phone without issue.

Thanks!

[RogueProeliator]

What version of Android are you on? I've just spent about two hours trying to track this down without success -- my Pixel is behaving the exact same as you describe but my Nexus 7 is playing the same device/feed (an RTSP feed) just fine. This is just passing off the display to the Android system via the URL, so in theory it should play anything that the Android system can play. But obviously something is going wrong there.

Adam

[RogueProeliator]

I have to take that back... I was able to play RTSP successfully after turning off authentication.

[RogueProeliator]

Try playing the video, once you get the error OK to dismiss it, immediately return to the previous screen and choose the Menu -> Help -> Send Debug Report. MIGHT be able to glean some additional information from that.

Adam

[rhanson]

Don't laugh, but I'm still on 5.1 on my original 2013 Moto X, because there hasn't been a phone released since then that can beat it.

I sent in a debug if it helps.

[RogueProeliator]

Don't laugh, but I'm still on 5.1 on my original 2013 Moto X, because there hasn't been a phone released since then that can beat it.

I understand sticking with something that you like... though I must say I didn't like my wife's Moto X. I don't remember what version she had (weren't there two?) At any rate, I get it!

I sent in a debug if it helps.

The error is pretty darn generic but seems to indicate that the VideoView can't play the files. Which doesn't make a ton of sense to me but COULD be accurate if that particular Android component wasn't finalized back then (this isn't indicating the phone can't play it, just that standard video display control).

I have an alpha version that swaps it out for the VLC player library... this can play MANY different video types that are independent of the system's codex. It hasn't been very well tested yet, though is working fine in my minor tests. If you want to try it out, send me your google account email address (pretty sure this is all I need to enroll you) via a PM.

Adam

[rhanson]

So just to follow up, I tried it on my Fire HD8 as well, and it doesn't play videos either, even though the same feed shows fine (as stills) within a control page and in a browser on the Fire.

Does the video feed device want rtsp, http or does it even care? Does it want a low res image? slow frame rates? m-jpeg only?

[RogueProeliator]

So just to follow up, I tried it on my Fire HD8 as well, and it doesn't play videos either, even though the same feed shows fine (as stills) within a control page and in a browser on the Fire.

Did the Alpha version ever come down for you? It would read v1.7.0

Does the video feed device want rtsp, http or does it even care? Does it want a low res image? slow frame rates? m-jpeg only?

As I mentioned before, it just passes it along to the system's video feed player - so it would be whatever your phone has encodings for in its video surface. This is different that what the browser might be able to play, though, as they would have their own codecs. The VLC library which I have included in that alpha can play virtually anything from my experience.

Adam

[whmoorejr]

rtsp worked for me with authentication. I have noticed (from using CCTV apps on AppleTV, Roku, Amazon Fire, etc.) Pulling an rtsp feed takes a while (even the lower resolution sub feed). I think it's a lot faster to create a control page for each camera and adjust the resolution that way. (size of control page & refresh rate). But I was happy to see that adding this as a device worked for me.

Rexim OS 2.0.307 / Android 5.1

[Different Computers]

Are these in control pages? How do video feeds work with the reflector limitations?

[RogueProeliator]

Are these in control pages? How do video feeds work with the reflector limitations?

These are not for control pages - these show up in the devices list and, when clicked on, will launch the video feed by URL. Now, one thing we have found is that some devices' default video player (which it was using) did not support the proper codecs for RTSP -- even though other apps such as web browsers did so. I did some experimentation with using VideoLAN (VLC) to decode it but I believe that is still in the beta one as it had some mixed success as well.

This is loading by URL, so it doesn't go over the reflector. Thus, you either need access to it video your WAN configuration or for use inside your LAN when you have a local address.

Video on control pages may be coming shortly if some of my experiments with embedding web pages within control pages work since the web browsers seem to support the video streams pretty well. But those, as well, would not work over the reflector.

Adam

[Different Computers]

these show up in the devices list

Adam

How does that happen? Feel free to direct me to documentation. Obviously I was totally unaware of this feature.

Also & unrelated: Poor Gandalf!


Edit: found it! Video feed devices. Who knew.

And considering that my upstream DSL is a pitiful 0.8Mbps, I'm not trying to do video to the WAN. LAN only will be great!

[RogueProeliator]

Edit: found it! Video feed devices. Who knew.

Like I said, your mileage may vary by device, for the time being... been doing a BUNCH of behind the scenes changes to the application that may allow re-visiting this.

The one issue I have had even when it works, and someone referenced this, is that the RTSP streams are SLOW to load and I haven't been able to get around that in any way. I feel like it is slow to start or negotiate or buffer or something. Not sure if this is an Android thing or just a bit worse on Android as my OS X client is for the cameras does take a second or two (but MUCH faster than on Android). Need to check into that later but has been a low priority. If I can get them onto control pages first, that would be more beneficial.