Why use Viewcam

tdenson
tdenson
in ViewCam

Dumb question, but why should I use ViewCam rather than SecuritySpy - is it just down to the cost ?

Comments

  • Ben
    Ben

    ViewCam is for viewing live video/audio streams from IP cameras in a nice user interface, in order to monitor cameras in real time (see features).

    SecuritySpy has all of ViewCam's features, plus: continuous recording, motion-triggered recording, AI-based object detection, notifications, remote access via web or iOS app, playback of recordings and more (see features).

    So as you can see, they are for different purposes: ViewCam is designed as a quick and easy live viewer, while SecuritySpy is a full CCTV solution. ViewCam can be used as a remote viewer for SecuritySpy, so in this way they can be complementary pieces of software. But, if you are already a SecuritySpy user, and don't need live viewing on another Mac, then ViewCam probably won't be useful for you, and certainly is not a replacement for SecuritySpy.

  • Spiv
    Spiv

    ViewCam looks interesting, but have some questions about niche uses on my end:


    Can't include AppleHomeKit cameras, correct? Now that there is some roundabout support for HomeKit on newer macOS, do you envision this being included in the future?


    The support for 3rd party NVR systems is only for pulling live video camera feeds from those systems? Granted, maybe not a mainstream use, by my biggest problem is dealing with 3rd party NVR system that cannot be replaced and dealing with their horrible user interface.

    Ideally, would love to have a ViewCam that can manipulate recordings (show the list of footage, playback specific clips, etc.) but I assume that would require proprietary API support for each brand of NVR. A big development effort and most NVR's may not even make those interfaces available and risky to put effort into supporting proprietary API's. I guess there isn't an ONVIF or similar standard for handling NVR features other than live streaming? (That would be the "right" way to do this kind of thing?)

  • Ben
    Ben

    Hi @Spiv, cameras that are designed for HomeKIt won't work in either ViewCam or SecuritySpy I'm afraid. Both are designed to support proper IP surveillance cameras, specifically ones that work with RTSP streaming (which is the industry standard).

    Yes, support for NVRs is only for pulling live streams in. Your summary about the difficulties of accessing recordings from NVRs is correct, and I don't see us supporting this for the reasons you outline. ONVIF does include a spec to access recordings (it's called "ONVIF Recording Control Service Specification") but it's not clear how widely supported this is, or how well this would work in practice across different devices.

  • Spiv
    Spiv

    Thanks!

    In my own setup, I have several sets of cameras in different eco-systems. Most are in SecuritySpy, some are also in UniFi Protect/NVR, and a few are self-contained RTSP/ONVIF cameras.

    I like the idea of ViewCam as an integrated console to view all of them and will be trying it out.

    One enhancement request: Would you consider adding a clickable button or link to each camera view? The target action would be a configurable URL. Ideally, to launch the appropriate 3rd party app (NVR or whatever) directly with that camera targeted, but at a minimum should be at least able to launch the corresponding URL.

    That would make ViewCam a central viewing and dispatch point into each of the associated footage playback/camera specific functionality.

  • Ben
    Ben

    I think this is a nice idea for a useful feature, thanks for the suggestion, I'll see if we can add this soon.

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