SecuritySpy Version 6 - Feature Questions
We are delighted to announce that, after a year of hard work to prepare it, SecuritySpy version 6 is now available! Full details about the new software can be found at Upgrading to Version 6, and it can be downloaded from the SecuritySpy Download Page.
We've overhauled the web interface, adding a wealth of functionality and refinements to make remote access more powerful, smoother and more intuitive. A new Settings window introduces more options, greater flexibility and a refined design, simplifying the process of software configuration. Plus, the AI-powered object detection is more accurate than ever, significantly reducing false positives. Key highlights are as follows:
Sleek Web Interface
- Enjoy a clean, feature-rich and intuitive remote access experience, compatible with all major web browsers on both Mac and Windows.
- Monitor multiple cameras easily with a responsive design that optimises space.
- High-efficiency video streaming minimises bandwidth and latency.
- Full settings access allows seamless management from anywhere.
Enhanced Settings
- Adjust settings for multiple cameras simultaneously, streamlining management tasks.
- Group-based web permissions for more flexible access control.
- Bandwidth-saving features such as variable-rate streaming and frame rate limits to optimise resource usage.
Advanced AI Detection: enjoy more precise object detection, with special features like bird exclusion for even smarter surveillance.
Performance Boosts: from a re-engineered RTSP engine to a multitude of improvements in user experience and performance, everything runs smoother and faster.
I'm creating this forum discussion for any questions related to features of the new software. If you have any questions about licensing, costs or upgrade eligibility, please instead post them to SecuritySpy Version 6 - Licensing Questions.
If you have any issues running version 6, please email us and we will resolve them as soon as we can. We don't expect many problems, however there have been significant changes under the hood, including new HTTP/RTSP/RTP parsing. While we have tested this with as many cameras as we can, it's possible that there are some (in particular older or no-brand) cameras that produce non-compliant streams that worked under version 5 but may not under version 6. If you encounter this, please contact us directly by email.
Comments
Thanks Ben,
❤️for the new web interface !!! Its just great.
Fantastic - many thanks @pgh!
Ben,
Thanks. Started exploring v6 and in particular the remote access feature.
One feature that seems to be deprecated (or maybe I'm just not looking in the right place!) is the ability to select the view size for a live camera feed. Previously under v5 I was able to remotely log in and view a feed in the browser on my spare mac mini showing my driveway and was able to specify a zoomed in window view size so whilst working at my desk I could monitor the driveway gate in closeup for visitors/incidents etc. Now under v6 there's certainly loads more features supporting remote access via a browser, but I can't see that previous feature or a usable alternative for my purposes. Hoping that feature hasn't gone now?
Thanks,
Mark
Edit: fixed, my view only user can't stream from sspy, using an administrator user works.
rtsp rebroadcast is broken for me with version 6. I rebroadcast from sspy and it was working great with version 5, since upgrading to version 6 it doesn't work anymore. Links from url generator doesn't open anymore in VLC (or anything else).
Also, when using sspy to remote view another sspy server, I can't enter values < 1 in the fps field (was working with V 5)
Mark - if I'm understanding correctly, you were using the web browsers's zoom and scroll to enlarge a part of the live image? I wouldn't say this is a "feature" of the old web interface, just a quirk that can be exploited by the browser's zoom so that images overflow and enlarge. As you have discovered, the responsive layout of the new interface, where it adapts to available space and doesn't overflow the page, means that this kind of thing won't work anymore.
I think some kind of zoom function in the new web interface would be a great feature. We'll see if we can add this in the future.
Meanwhile, the whole previous web interface is still available at the /legacy subdirectory, so you could use the legacy interface for this specific purpose, while switching to the new web interface for all other tasks.
Hi @pgh - good point about the frame rate input field - we'll make sure to modify this so that it can can accept decimal values.
With the RTSP URLs, Make sure to use the option to add authentication to the URL. The new session-based authentication model in the new web interface may be interfering with VLC's ability to obtain the stream, but this is bypassed by adding auth to the URL. Let me know if this doesn't do it, and we'll look into this further.
I was using authentification with sspy v5 (view only account) (stream?cameraNum=0&auth=!2055ad53ae1a8b5002d62ef665acda7f46bf170a440fe32b)
The same url is not working in V6. Switching the url to my main, admin account works.
Hi Ben
I don't know if this is by design, but I've just noticed that the Window Zoom feature is absent in SS version 6 on the Camera Triggers page. Can I request its return?
The larger pen size is welcome. 😉 *
Robbie
* Just realised that was present in version 5 too.
I really like the new web interface too, thanks Ben!
ditto Robbie's observation regarding enlarging the camera view window within Triggers to help draw the motion detection mask.
@pgh - it looks like you're doing right, we'll investigate this.
@Robbie and @paul2020 thanks for the suggestion, we'll make sure to add this back soon!
I wanted to check before installing the trial. I have the SS server installed on a headless Mac mini, and access the cameras on my laptop using ViewCam, on Apple TV using the SS ATV app, and on iPhones and iPads using the IOS apps. Do all of these viewing options still work, and if so, is switching transparent to the user?
EDIT: Also, all of my cameras are various versions from Sharx Security. Should these still function the same? I know I had a bear of a time getting settings set for various models over the years.
Thanks!
Ben,
Thank you for your response. I perhaps could have been clearer about the SS Web server remote access feature I was referring to. Not zooming using the browser controls itself as that causes the live feed to be pixelated and effectively unusable.
I was referring to the v5 SS Webserver live video size options. See attached image.
Thanks for informing me about the legacy interface. I wasn't aware. This works fine and fixes things for me. Thanks. As you suggest it allows me to use the best of both version interfaces.
v6 looking good.
Thanks,
Mark
Mark - thanks for the clarification. The old "Actual Size" option does indeed display the image a full size, which may overflow the web page. We didn't consider this to be a good thing, but I see how it has been useful for you! I hope the dual ability to use the old and new web interfaces will be a good solution for now, until we implement some kind of proper digital zoom in the new interface.
@Steve - yes, all should work as before with all these viewing methods.
We have specifically tested Sharx cameras with SecuritySpy 6 and have not found any problems. If you find any issues with them after upgrading please let us know!
I upgraded one of my servers yesterday, but the web interface isn't working for me when I use Safari. It works in Edge or Chromium, but not Safari? Is there a parameter someplace I can set to make this work?
Thanks for adding back decimal values for FPS in the last beta, it works perfectly now !
@pgh - great!
@mmatyas - Safari may be caching some of the old web files, try a hard reload (Command-alt-R). Does that do it? If not, please email us and include a screenshot of what you see.
I have some feedback about the new web interface. Whilst a huge improvement overall there are some instant things I noticed that are small changes that could be improved :
1) I have bookmarks on various devices to the web interface and those links now fail. Ie http://192.168.2.199:8000/live?cameraNum=1&viewMethod=3&auth=&windowWidth=1920&windowHeight=971
At the very least, can I request that you handle the old urls to redirect to the base url. Ie anything to /live redirects to / . The same applies naturally for any other urls the old interface used.
2) Ideally some of the old url params (ie cameraNum) would be interpreted and work on the new interface to allow users to share urls to the interface with the correct cameras showing by default
3) The hidden/show state of the left hand side control bar doesn't seem to get remembered. This is fine on a desktop, but on a mobile browser its a pain. Please store the state of the bar in a cookie or browser storage so that it doesn't always re-appear on page load if the user had hidden it.
I tried accessing the web interface on a different machine using Safari and all is OK. You are probably right about cacheing. Thanks.
-Mike
I have a suggestion for the web view too please. Could there be a "De/Select All" option, toggle, or tick box so that allows us quickly select all cameras without having to click each one to show them on the page?
Thanks.
I was about to request the same thing as @paul2020
We have a user that wants all 50 cameras displayed in browser, at the moment, have to select every one. Shift-clicking are range doesn't work either.
Hi @paul2020 and @jlbrown you can select none/all by alt-clicking any one checkbox. It's a bit of a hidden feature, any suggestions to make this more obvious would be appreciated :)
@AdamSpy - thanks for your feedback. I understand the issue, that the previous links don't work. This is because the whole structure of the web interface has changed - the old pages don't exist anymore,, there are no per-page parameters, and the whole authentication scheme is different. Perhaps the best thing would be for us to redirect these kinds of links to the legacy interface (so that http://192.168.2.199:8000/live would go to http://192.168.2.199:8000/legacy/live, which should then work as before). We'll take a look at this.
Good idea about remembering the sidebar status - we'll add that.
Hi Ben, re the links, that would be great as a quick fix. I didn't realise the old version was still present so if it can redirect to that perfect.
As a secondary further down the road task, I would say though that it would be great if JS could make the url update on the new web interface as critical things are clicked between. This would in effect produce urls that allow users to reload the interface with certain things already 'set'. I'm mainly referring to the display of the chosen cameras although maybe there are other things but that would be useful to work like this too.
I'd argue that even the most modern web 'apps' that are 100% just changing content within the DOM without additional page loads usually do modify the url in the browser and then have the capacity to go back to that state if the url is reloaded. Of course some of that is for SEO reasons sometimes but certainly not just that, it's also a usability point. It would make the new interface genuinely more useful if the url stated what cameras/camera group was active and that could then be shared with the admin of the app to other users.
Thanks for the additional feedback. As you rightly have surmised, the new web interface mainly works by JavaScript doing work to change layouts, add/remove content, and load/display resources from the back end. This is a complicated mechanism that we are unlikely to change. I understand the benefit of having URLs that can save state, but this just doesn't work with the new web interface. Instead, if there are any specific features that users want, we'll simply see if we can implement them within the current system.
For example, sets of cameras can be remembered using groups (and the web interface remembers which members of each group are selected for live viewing, on a per-group basis). If there are other specific features you would like to see, feel free to make suggestions and we'll consider adding them.
@Ben thank you for letting us know about the alt+click feature - perhaps a little note at the bottom of the All Cameras section could say "Alt+click to select all" so that it's not a hidden feature you have to find in the guide?
Ben, I am very pleased with how smooth the web access renders the cameras. They are very smooth with never any jerkiness and makes them very pleasant to view. Will the iOS app be updated anytime to render them as smooth. I view the cameras regularly on a large screen TV with Apple TV and it's not as smooth. It is all connected by Cat 6 so it's not WiFi causing the less smooth viewing.
Thanks for a great update.
Marty
I view the cameras from my computer and my wife does as well. I am finding the web access is smoother than using a copy of Security Spy as view only (which I know you have stated is allowed). Is it normal that the browser viewer should be smoother? It's not a huge difference but I can tell it. The web view now is "buttery" smooth and I really enjoy it.
My wife prefers viewing the cameras in a different order than I do. Is there a way for the web viewer to order the cameras differently? I know it's set by the server but it would be nice if possible to order them differently from each computer we use.
A couple of other thoughts. I do miss on the viewer being able to double click and zoom in on one camera (as I can on using SecuritySpy in view only). Since it's one web page I suppose this is not possible.
I miss having the old viewer's page with all the stats of the server. Perhaps that could be added. I am sorry to offer suggestions or ask about changes because the new viewer is so much smoother and faster. Even as is, it's a great improvement.
Marty
Thanks for your feedback Marty - great to hear that you are liking the new features.
The new web viewer does something special with the live streams, which is that it requests a video size from the server that is only as big as it needs to render the image in the allocated space on the web page, and this is adjusted automatically as its allocated box changes size (e.g. due to adding/removing other cameras, or resizing the window). So it could be requesting a size that is a half/quarter/eighth etc. of the full size, which can reduce the bandwidth requirements significantly. This bandwidth reduction could account for the difference in smoothness you are seeing.
Instead, when using a client copy of SecuritySpy for the same purpose, it always requests the full-size stream, which can put more strain on the network and the server.
In terms of the camera order, I'm afraid this is set on the server and cannot be adjusted on the client.
As for the zoom - I like this idea and I think it would be a good idea for us to implement in a near-future update.
Ben, thanks for the quick responses. The smoothness in the SecuritySpy as client only is nearly as good as the web viewer so we are not missing anything really. I do use SecuritySpy as a client only viewer since I can reorder on the client and can zoom with a double click. Thanks for considering adding that to the web viewer. We are almost all Mac here, but I do have one Windows laptop I use to view the cameras 24/7 in another room. The new web viewer has made viewing there a whole new, and better, experience. It's much smoother than before and looks great. Thanks again for a great upgrade.
Marty