Multiple Network Cameras On Sage

[lamanmi]

I have been looking for the best way to integrate multiple network (wireless) cameras into Sage both for server and extender viewing for home security monitoring. I have tried the Universal Network Encoder but have not had much luck with a reliable connection through a graph.

I have come up with the following solution, however, which seems to be working pretty well so far:

1) I have purchased a Panasonic wireless video server (BL-WV10A) that has a composite RCA out connection. It can be programmed to connect up to 8 Panasonic wireless cameras (unfortunatly, it appears to only support Panasonic cameras). I found one on Ebay for about $200. It has an IR remote control for selecting which camera to view and/or to view multiple cameras at the same time.

2) I hooked up this RCA composite to my Hauppauge composite input and set it up as a video source in Sage.

3) I then set up a channel in Sage for each of the cameras connected to the video server and programed the USB_UIRT blaster to send the IR siginals to the video server to change which camera is viewed.

Now I have on the Sage TV guide the ability to select a camera to view (which appears as Sage channels), Sage switches to that video source and USB_UIRT sends the siginal to the video server to view that camera. It has worked very well from a reliability perspective, however, this is not necessarily the most cost effective solution, as you need the video server at at least $200 and Panasonic cameras (which seem to be pretty good equipment, but are more expensive then others).

Has anyone else been able to come up with other ways to integrate multiple wireless cameras to be viewable on Sage and HD200s?

[bcjenkins]

I would look at the web radio encoder being worked on right now. It leverages VLC to create an mpeg2 stream for SageTV. I would imagine VLC can connect to your cameras and transcode as well.

Lastly, I believe Michael is also working on making videos work, which shouldn't be that hard.

B

[pjpjpjpj]

Are there any cameras out there that are plug and play with Sage, where, when you attach them to your PC, they are seen as an available tuner, and their video/audio stream could be assigned to a channel in the EPG with no middle-man encoding needed?

[nick_l]

Thought I'd give a little bump to this thread. I to would love a way to view the mpeg stream from my IP security cameras.

It would be great to be able to see those streams directly in Sage. Alack, my Studio skills are horrible.

Hopefully as these cams become more common, someone will write and STVi for this purpose.


Nick

[Fuzzy]

Been a long time since I've messed with it, but I thought most cameras showed as capture devices to windows, and therefore would show up as available sources in sage.. though honestly, it's been a LONG time since I've looks for it. Also, not sure on the IP based cameras, as I believe it would depend on how the driver architecture worked for each individual camera brand/model.

[bcjenkins]

Originally Posted by nick_l

Thought I'd give a little bump to this thread. I to would love a way to view the mpeg stream from my IP security cameras.

It would be great to be able to see those streams directly in Sage. Alack, my Studio skills are horrible.

Hopefully as these cams become more common, someone will write and STVi for this purpose.


Nick

I think you should try the VLC encoder http://forums.sagetv.com/forums/showthread.php?t=40637

B

[nick_l]

Oops, I forgot about this thread for a little while. bcjenkins, thanks for the suggestion, I'll look into it.

Nick