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Sunba 601-D20X (Outdoor PTZ 20x optical zoom, POE+)

edited June 2016 in Cameras
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.
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Comments

  • Thank you for the info on this camera, I hope to post back the progress… I'd like to get one of these cameras.
  • edited June 2016
    Here are the camera parameter settings that seem to work best my Sunba for stable operation.

    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.
  • The non-stop motion issue is duplicated by other cameras (Netcat) that use this same firmware. I'm currently too busy to give Ben a good network capture on this on my Netcat cameras.

    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.
  • edited August 2016
    No. I just set the increment slider pretty low in Security Spy.
    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.
  • I also have this PTZ drifting problem but it works fine in many other programs like "ovinf device manager"
    It appears it could be related to the onvif interpertation but seems odd that other unrelated programs can also read this correctly.
  • BenBen
    edited December 2016
    Hi Guy, the preset issue should be fixed in the latest beta version of SecuritySpy (currently 4.0.11b7) - please confirm.
  • edited December 2016
    If you mean setting the SPEED/increments of PTZ movement, SS beta 4.0.11b7 now stores and recalls the speed setting. The settings are easily accessible. All three of my Sunba's can now have their PTZ speed set in SS. For a couple versions, I haven't been able to set speed even when I got to the controls. That much seems solved. (Yes, I like these cameras enough for "varmint" patrol that I now have three of theses cameras in my 12 camera setup.

    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.
  • edited January 2017
    Updating my recommendations regarding communications for new revisions of Security Spy 4.0/ 4.1

    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.

  • Also, importantly, leave the port numbers BLANK when using the ONVIF profile with the Sunna's. SS uses the correct ports by itself. Manually filling them in doesn't always get the results you expect and the correct ports change depending on which RTSP protocol you select. Just let SS decide on its own.

    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
  • Thanks for your work to get this camera integrated! When it is working well, it really is fun. I haven't been able to get the presets to work through SS either.

    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
  • As another example, when using the SS Screensaver, the Sunba stream will take 2 to 3 seconds longer than the other streams to begin displaying an image. And then, while the timecode on all of the other cameras dutifully ticks off a second at a time, the Sunba will increment at 2 to 4 second intervals.
  • Are you letting SS re-compress video or add text to Sunba camera stream?

    Your symptoms sound an awful like recompression is happening.
  • They do sound like recompression, but no- as far as I know, I'm not doing any. I'm not doing any recording with the Sunba either- I'm just using it as a live stream. I'll double check all of the check boxes to make sure.

    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.
  • But here is an interesting thing that may relate more to Security Spy:

    If I have the SS preferences panel open, and the Sunba camera selected in the cameras column, playback performance on remote devices is perfect.
  • Weird things you are having happen. I haven't been getting those effects here.

    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.
  • Thanks! I will check to make sure that I have the setting to "fluency'. One thing I have to say about this camera is that customer support from Sunba has been very good. They've been very willing to exchange emails with me to help work out problems.

    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.
  • There is one thing that might be worth trying. I once got into a situation in SS where changing a camera's profile from one definition to another and then back left things in a weird state. That camera's settings in SS became weird, in that not all the controls worked correctly. This included some settings not being available and others having no effect. This was even with closing the preferences dialog to force saving of the new settings.

    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.

  • I have set 'fluency' and also deleted, restarted, and recreated the camera profile in SS, but there seems to be no improvement. Also, SS disconnects from the camera approximately every 2 minutes (give or take 5 seconds). I think that I saw a different thread about that in the forums.

    Maybe I'll send Ben an email and ask him about it, or ask him to take a look at this thread.

  • I just realized that I am not using the beta that you are- I'm still on 4.0.10- so perhaps the issues are related to that.
  • Yes, definitely get the latest beta. Things have improved quite a bit.

    http://www.bensoftware.com/securityspy/download-beta.html
  • Hi @Rocco - the issue with the low frame rate via the web server will be related to the "Decompress incoming video frames only when required" option under Preferences -> General. If this option is checked, SecuritySpy will turn off decompression of the incoming frames at any point where a frame isn't required for anything. Subsequently, if a frame is required (e.g. for sending via the web server), SecuritySpy has to wait for the next key frame (which will typically be a few seconds) before it can start decompressing and processing the video again. This cycle will be happening continuously when streaming via the web server, if the rate at which frames can be sent is lower than the rate at which they are coming in.

    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!
  • Thank you Ben- I'll give the beta a shot, and consider decompressing everything.

    @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.
  • Assuming there is nothing that is nearer in the foreground, no. I don't have that autofocus issue on any of my three Sunbas. If there is something in the foreground, autofocus preferentially locks onto the nearer object.

    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
  • Thanks Guykuo, the lens recalibration worked, although I had to do it twice to see results

    @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 have 12 cameras in SS, including 3 Sunba PTZ units. The entire system is able to run without losing connections, but it took some work to limit overall data load and CPU to something my iMac can handle and allow nearly a month of continuous recording from all 12 cameras.

    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)

  • Thanks again Guykuo- somewhere between trying your settings and switching to v4.1 performance seems to have really stabilized. Hopefully it'll stay that way.

    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.
  • Sunba technical support doesn't expect firmware to change PTZ ONVIF preset behavior to be available until they release their starlight camera. So, fixing the Security Spy / Sunba PTZ preset issue won't be solved from that end for some time.

    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.
  • Wondering if anyone has have any success getting audio over ONVIF from this cam. We have two of these cameras now. One is equipped with the Sunba Line-in microphone. Audio does work well from the Sunba web interface but not through SS.
    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
  • I would guess this is a problem with the audio encoding method not being one accepts by SS, but there isn't a setting in the Sunba firmware for selecting its audio encoding codec.

    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.

  • HURRAH! Ben solved it.

    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.
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