Sunba 601-D20X (Outdoor PTZ 20x optical zoom, POE+)
Reporting that I have a Sunba 601-D20X PTZ camera working with Security Spy 4.01. Operation isn't perfect, but it is a remarkable outdoor PTZ at $335. It even tilts up 15 degrees. PTZ works via SS keyboard commands and the web server. Suffers non-stop motion but if you use SS 4.01's drawer PTZ controls, but hopefully that will be fixed in SS.
As of this time, preset positions only work via Explorer. Security Spy is unable to set or recall position presets. None the less, image quality during day and night is decent. Optical zoom has good range and panning speed is plenty fast for my occasional motion needs. I'm not having it do a patrol routine, but it is capable of doing so if directed from Internet Explorer.
Initial setup of camera practically requires a PC and explorer. Thank heavens for Virtual PC. There is a Mac VMS program, but it doesn't expose as many controls as accessing the camera via Explorer.
Autofocus of the camera can be fooled during misty or foggy conditions. Also, I have found that the camera can get into a state under IR_Cut autoswitch that toggles back and for between day/night during rain. That can be worked around using IR_Cut SyncSwitch.
Overall, I am pretty pleased at how well the camera works, especially at the price point.
Getting it to work with Security Spy isn't straight forward. The manual is Chinglish and so are the dialog boxes.
1. Set up the camera device in SS as an Onvif device
Http and RTSP ports can be left empty (default)
Format RTSP TCP works in SS 4.01, but can have more drop outs. RTSC UDP gives more stable video stream
Stream 1 for main video stream
2. On the camera, I recommend setting the network transmission policy to "Fluency"
The other policies (adaptive, quality, transmission) seem to cause frozen web streams and drop outs.
Encode setting that are most reliable is CBR rather than VBR. VBR setting suffers video frame losses. CBR seems to play better with SS.
As of this time, preset positions only work via Explorer. Security Spy is unable to set or recall position presets. None the less, image quality during day and night is decent. Optical zoom has good range and panning speed is plenty fast for my occasional motion needs. I'm not having it do a patrol routine, but it is capable of doing so if directed from Internet Explorer.
Initial setup of camera practically requires a PC and explorer. Thank heavens for Virtual PC. There is a Mac VMS program, but it doesn't expose as many controls as accessing the camera via Explorer.
Autofocus of the camera can be fooled during misty or foggy conditions. Also, I have found that the camera can get into a state under IR_Cut autoswitch that toggles back and for between day/night during rain. That can be worked around using IR_Cut SyncSwitch.
Overall, I am pretty pleased at how well the camera works, especially at the price point.
Getting it to work with Security Spy isn't straight forward. The manual is Chinglish and so are the dialog boxes.
1. Set up the camera device in SS as an Onvif device
Http and RTSP ports can be left empty (default)
Format RTSP TCP works in SS 4.01, but can have more drop outs. RTSC UDP gives more stable video stream
Stream 1 for main video stream
2. On the camera, I recommend setting the network transmission policy to "Fluency"
The other policies (adaptive, quality, transmission) seem to cause frozen web streams and drop outs.
Encode setting that are most reliable is CBR rather than VBR. VBR setting suffers video frame losses. CBR seems to play better with SS.
Comments
Exposure Mode: Auto
Day/Night Mode: Auto
Scene Mode: Auto
Video Profile: Style 3 (aka high profile)
Day NT Level: 5 (adjusts night noise reduction level)
Night NT Level: 5 (adjusts night noise reduction level)
AGC: On upper 50
Wide Dynamic: On upper 30
AE Reference: 50
DNC Threshold: 30 (day / night change threshold, but I don’t see this actually changes behavior)
AE Sensitivity: 2 (lower for slower auto exposure reactivity)
IR-Cut: SyncSwitch (automatic causes propensity for back and forth oscillation between day/night)
Backlight: Off
Auto Iris: Off
Mirror: Off
Flip: Off
Anti flashing: Off (used to stop strobing with fluorescent lighting)
IR Swap: (I have not been able to determine what this actually does.)
The Mac version of their VMS will sometimes refuse to completely quit. You may need to force quit the app.
Overall, the camera's hardware seems to be pretty decent, but the firmware and accompanying software is a bit dodgy. Overall, I am pleased with the camera and am successfully working around the firmware well enough for it to be stable and working well with Security Spy. The only thing that doesn't work right now are PTZ presets. Those can only be set and triggered via Intenet Explorerer. SS won't successfully send the preset position commands. Pity. The presets are executed by the camera pretty darn fast.
Question: do you have any problems with the increments of PTZ motions? With the Netcat using similar firmware, I get huge swings for every button press (90 degrees or more) which renders the camera kind of unusable. I'm hoping this is fixed with more recent versions of the firmware, which Netcat is unable to offer since I suspect they didn't write it.
It's a little tricky because those controls become inaccessible just a few seconds after your mouse enters the PTZ control window. Once set low, the camera slews slow enough to easily control.
Still wish that presets would work, but overall continue happy with the camera and picked up a 2nd one.
It appears it could be related to the onvif interpertation but seems odd that other unrelated programs can also read this correctly.
If you mean camera position POSITION PRESETS, then no. SS seems unable to set nor trigger the Sunba's to move to a preset position or zoom.
Yes, there are problems with the video stream dropping out in the latest beta. That was broken somewhere between the 4.0.10 and the current beta. Ticket 37127 has been submitted for that. Unfortunately, I didn't test on earlier 4.011 betas. So, I can't report when the issue was introduced..
I realize that any particular camera isn't a huge priority, but they are an important part of my overall system. SS is so close to getting the entire job done. For the moment, I'm keeping at 4.0.10 for its video stream connection stability. I'd love to move forward to the goodies in 4.0.11 once the bugs get squashed.
RTSP over UDP is no longer stable. It used to be the most stable, but you will likely do much better now with RTSP over TCP or RTSP over HTTP/TCP. Prior to now, those protocols were either unstable or simply refused connection. They work now.
So, ignore my earlier post about using RTSP over UDP. Things have changed.
Once PTZ presets are working these cameras will be fully supported in SS. I have three of them in my system and they continue to be some of my most useful cameras despite their low cost.
Everything will work, except PTZ presets. Those can be set and triggered on Windows via the very useful "ONVIF Device Manager" app downloadable from Source Forge. That runs just fine under VMware Fusion.
I am hopeful that Ben Software will be able to get PTZ presets working. Ben, himself believed it was already working, but alas it just doesn't here.
Anyways, let SS find the ports itself when you select ONVIF. Only If you are a glutton for punishment, set the ports manually. There are a total of FOUR different ports defined on the camera. Two of those can be filled into SS's camera preferences. A lot of seemingly correct combinations just won't work. Others that do work, seem like they should not.
On the Sunba...
Under Network Settings
Media Port
ONVIF Port
TCP Port
Hidden Under Net Services
RTSP Port
I've noticed that when I am streaming this camera's video through the web server to Remote Patrol or the SS iPhone app, the CPU usage jumps much more than it does for other cameras. It'll climb up to above 30%, where the others (mostly hikvision and some dahua) stay around 10%. This is visible on the app side as dropped frames while the cpu usage climbs. I can watch the time code skip seconds until cpu usage levels out and then it seems more consistent.
This implies to me that SS is having to do much more to this video stream to get it 'web-ready' than it has to do to others.
Does anyone have any thoughts as to how I might get this video stream to require a little less processing? I'm encoding 15 fps at 1080p, with a CBR of 3472, an I frame interval of 2, and no audio.
Rocco
Your symptoms sound an awful like recompression is happening.
I'm going to try different things on the Sunba side- including audio or not (even though there is no microphone attached), changing I-frame intervals, etc. I've already kicked it down to 720p with no significant improvement in lag.
Another very strange thing is that the playback performance for the Sunba decreases more than my other devices when I leave my home network, and the PTZ control becomes incredibly sluggish- even on my very fast internet at work.
Thanks for your thoughts, I'll keep trying things and report back if I have any success.
If I have the SS preferences panel open, and the Sunba camera selected in the cameras column, playback performance on remote devices is perfect.
BTW, is network transmission policy set for "fluency" in your Sunna's network settings?
Also, Ben is aware of the PTZ presets not working and is awaiting the end of the Chinese holidays before any progress can be made on that.
A word of caution to anyone else that might purchase this camera- I was able to lock myself out of it entirely by using a password that was too long and complex. I don't know if the breaking point was length or symbol characters, but I would recommend that if you are changing the admin password to make sure that you make a new admin account to make sure you can get back in. There is no visibly evident reset button on the camera, and as guykuo says, you really need a windows installation to manage it well.
The only way to get things working right was to completely delete that camera from SS. Then, create a new one to take its place. I think the preferences file was corrupted in a way that SS could no longer deal with that camera device. Deleting and recreating got rid of that glitch.
Maybe I'll send Ben an email and ask him about it, or ask him to take a look at this thread.
http://www.bensoftware.com/securityspy/download-beta.html
This option of course reduces CPU usage on the Mac, but can lead to poor performance in certain cases, such as yours. I suggest you simply turn off this option.
As for the CPU usage when streaming via the web server, 30% sounds reasonable considering the frame rate and resolution of the camera. Remember that this is 30% of one CPU core, so for example if your Mac has 4 cores, this represents only 7.5% of your Mac's overall CPU resources, which is low.
We are aware of the problem with the presets and are working with Sunba on a solution.
Thanks @guykuo for providing so much excellent information and feedback!
@guykuo- Do either of your cameras exhibit a problem trying to autofocus on something distant at full zoom? I am having an issue with that. I have to back off the zoom a bit (almost doubling the field of view) to get the camera to autofocus. I can adjust with the manual focus controls on the windows utilities, but as soon as I move the camera it shifts out of focus again.
You could try doing a lens position recalibration sequence. It is a series of preset calls. So, you will have to do that from Windows Explorer. Tell the camera call these three presets in a row.
189 call
205 call
20 call
Doing those three preset calls in a row triggers a lens recalibration. That might help you out.
Clearly, you can't do it from Security Spy, since SS at present can't request such numbered presets
@Ben, I've upgraded to the latest beta, but I still get disconnected from the camera for a few seconds every 2 minutes or so.
I had to drop to 8 FPS to make it all work reliably. You might consider dropping the rate and settings on the Sunba and in SS to 8 FPS for testing. Increase FPS once you have it stable.
Here are my current camera & Security Spy settings for you to replicate my settings.
Sunba Encoding Settings
Channel 1
Compression H.264
Resolution 1080P
FPS 8
Bit Rate Type CBR
Quality Best (dimmed)
Bit Rate 2226
I Frame Interval 2 (that's an i-frame every 2 seconds)
Video checkmarked / Audio not check marked
Static configuration of Main Profile
2nd Channel not encoding video nor audio
————————
Security Spy General
check marked both of below
Perform motion detection only when required
decompress incoming video frame only when required
————————
Security Spy Device
address is manual IP address
ONVIF port (empty)
RTSP port (empty)
Profile ONVIF
Format RTSP TCP (video and audio)
Video sizes (empty)
Frame rate (default dimmed)
Input stream 1
all 4 options NOT check marked
————————
Security spy “setup” for camera tab
Text overlay NOT enabled
Video motion detection Enabled
—————
Security spy Continuos Capture tab
capture rate 8 frames per second (matches that set in camera)
—————
Security spy Motion Capture tab
capture rate 8 frames per second (matches that set in camera)
I've said it elsewhere in this forum, but it's really the responsiveness of this community and Ben that takes Security Spy from being really good software to being really great software.
The PTZ presets DO work from software other than Security Spy, but SS uses a different scheme than other software to implement PTZ presets. That scheme doesn't work with Sunba's current firmware.
Sunba is sending Ben a camera for testing. So, I'm still hopeful that a work around or fix can still be developed. Otherwise, my three Sunba's have been great PTZ cameras.
Audio is enabled in the cam setup.
Firmware and SS version is up to date.
We have tried all the obvious stuff.
We are in touch with the support folks at Bens but if anyone has this figured out, I'd rather not reinvent the wheel!
Thanks,
Tim
Personally, I've never tried using the audio functions of my Sunbas. At least the audio connections are terminated with connectors. On my new Dahua, the audio lines are just wires without any connectors.
4.1.5b17 allows setting, usage, and re-setting of PTZ preset positions. Always was annoying that the cameras had PTZ presets, but they were inaccessible from Security Spy.
This is a huge leap forward for Security Spy and Sunba PTZ's.
Now all of my PTZ's (Sunba and Dahua) are fully functional under Security Spy.