GoSwift cameras

jaharmi
jaharmi
edited June 2021 in SecuritySpy
Has anyone had any experiences, good or bad, with the cameras from GoSwift Security?

https://goswiftsecurity.com/

This appears to be related to Nelly’s Security on the IPCamTalk forums. Don’t know what the OEM is.

Comments

  • Ben
    Ben
    We haven't come across these before, and in their spec sheets there is no mention of standard protocols that would allow them to work with SecuritySpy (ONVIF, RTSP). It's possible that these cameras only work with their own NVR device. If you want to use these cameras with SecuritySpy, you should contact Go Swift beforehand to check if they support RTSP. In general, it's best to stick to brands shown as compatible on our list of supported cameras.
  • jaharmi
    jaharmi
    The spec sheet I looked at lists RTSP as well as ONVIF (ver 2.6). This was for their bullet camera.

    https://goswiftsecurity.com/downloads/specsheets/GS-4KBULLET-1.pdf
  • Ben
    Ben
    My mistake - you are indeed correct that ONVIF and RTSP are shown on the spec sheet. Therefore it's highly likely that these cameras will work with SecuritySpy. If you decide to buy one, please report back with your experiences.
  • jaharmi
    jaharmi
    I will.
  • jaharmi
    jaharmi
    edited July 2021
    I've tried a GoSwift 4K Bullet Camera and it works with ONVIF. It worked with PoE. The video seems of good quality during the daytime, testing it indoors.

    The defaults I see:

    - RTSP on, port 554, authentication on
    - Main Stream: 3840×2160 at 15 fps, H.264 with Main Profile, CBR, and Predefined Bitrate Mode of 6144 Kbps and Iframe interval of 30

    The SecuritySpy camera profile test resulted in these profiles:

    - ONVIF with RTSP
    - ONVIF with RTSP over HTTP
    - ONVIF with RTSP UDP

    I did not see a way to enable SSL and trying to use it from SecuritySpy made the connection fail.

    I was not able to connect to RTSP without supplying credentials. Somewhat confusingly, there is an RTSP option called "anonymous login" that is off by default. I guess the option seems backwards to me.

    I tried switching it to H.265 unsuccessfully, but that may have been because I was also trying to set up a non-administrator user on it at the same time. Generally, when I enabled H.265 on the camera, SecuritySpy's camera profile test showed no compatible profiles. I wasn't able to get SecuritySpy to connect with a second user account I created on the camera, so I'm not sure what's going on there.

    If there are specific parameters for H.264/H.265 that are better to use with SecuritySpy, I can try to change and test them. Options include:

    - Profile: baseline, main, high
    - CBR or VBR
    - Bitrate: Predefined or user defined (with field to enter N Kbps)
    - Iframe interval: field to enter 1-60

    The admin app requires Windows (boo) to make changes on the camera. There's a viewer app for mobile devices (iOS, Android). There's no obvious Web interface with or without a plugin, although trying to access the camera with Safari responds with a textpage saying the plugin requires Safari 11.

    I'm not clear who the OEM is. Based on prompts for access during the Windows app installers, I would guess it is from some Chinese source.
  • Ben
    Ben
    Thanks for reporting back.

    Is it not possible to adjust any of the camera's settings using Safari? It might be worth trying Google Chrome too in case this works. If the camera cannot be configured without Windows this is a big disadvantage!

    In terms of encoding settings, I would suggest VBR, with a medium-high quality setting, 10fps and an I-Frame interval of 2x-3x the frame rate.

    ONVIF with RTSP is going to be the best setting in SecuritySpy. With the camera in H.265 mode, what is the error that you get reported to the log file (File menu in SecuritySpy > Open Log)?
  • jaharmi
    jaharmi
    I installed two cameras after letting three of them run for a while on easier-to-reach network connections, but before I saw this reply.

    I can try the H.265 setup again with those parameters when I get a chance. I have the third camera I can test, since I can keep it in easy reach.

    I'm getting a lot of brief timeouts — maybe once per 30 to 60 seconds — with the two installed cameras. I didn't see this while they were plugged in and more accessible, of course. :( I don't know if the timeouts are due to the longer cables required to get them to their installed location. It is possible there was a problem with the cable pulls, as it was a bit difficult to pull them to that location and in doing so, the cables _may_ have gotten stressed or kinked. It's also possible that the equipment is just hot, given the current heat wave.

    Here's an example of the logs I got in SecuritySpy:

    07/11/2021 06:11:34: Error communicating with network device "GoSwift Test Turret Area 01". 5.3.4,70902,812 Error from network device. No key frames received from device recently.
    07/11/2021 06:11:56: Very high CPU usage detected - reduce camera frame rates, check recording settings, or quit other applications
    07/11/2021 06:14:16: Error communicating with network device "GoSwift Test Turret Area 02". 5.3.4,70902,812 Error from network device. No key frames received from device recently.
    07/11/2021 06:27:06: Error communicating with network device "GoSwift Test Turret Area 01". 5.3.4,8440,800 Error from network device. The operation timed out.
    07/11/2021 06:35:59: Error communicating with network device "GoSwift Test Turret Area 02". 5.3.4,89900,54 Error from network device. Connection closed by the other side.
    07/11/2021 06:50:08: Error communicating with network device "GoSwift Test Turret Area 01". 5.3.4,89900,54 Error from network device. Connection closed by the other side


    Except for the timeouts, the installed cameras were streaming very well in 4K at 15 fps. I had three of them doing this before installing the first two.

    I am running SecuritySpy in a VM. I tested giving the VM additional vCPU, up to 10 cores. That didn't seem to help eliminating timeouts or reducing them / spreading them out. I'm currently testing the use of the 1080P stream instead of 4K to see if that changes things.

    The Windows-based setup app is definitely a drawback. It was easy enough to set up a temporary Windows 10 VM (free download) to use that app. I tried browsers on both macOS Big Sur (Safari, Chrome, and Firefox, all current) and on Windows 10 (Edge and IE).

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