Resolution differences on Windows and Mobile App..Glitch/Bug?

Just installed 2 x HiKam S5 Minis. Good cams, pretty happy. I’ve got them running through Netcam on an old AMD Dual Core HTTP setup.

Problem 1 is… When I select ONVIF to connect to Camera 1 or 2…although the cameras are password protected it will still work without? (Probably not the fault of Netcam…I will get on to HiKam about this too!)

Problem 2 (the main issue) - As I am using a fairly old setup running 2 cams the CPU gets hammered. However, I have used the 720HD stream on camera 1 and it comes through fine, then I change the stream to the lower resolution stream and then back again…then I get an altogether new resolution 640x360. Now ,this resolution is not 720HD nor is it the lower stream of 320x180 so it basically not on offer from the camera?!?

On camera 2, I can select the HD stream or the lower 320 stream without issue…this works as expected. Thing is, this odd resolution of 640x360 lets my AMD CPU breath and reduced the load considerably. Eventhough this seems to be a bug/Glitch, I cannot reproduce this for camera 2 no matter how hard I try…as settingg them both to this mysterios resolution of 640x360 would be doing me a favor…

Any idea what is going on? Pics attached. (EDIT: can only upload 1 pic as a new user here)

Hi John!
Yes, this was an interesting camera ;). Some searching gives that it has 2 resolutions; one HD and one SD. When you connect to the cam using ONVIF you can look in the Custom URL and see what the stream type and the URL is. So you can connect to them. The info I have is that the Stream Type is rtsp_udp and the URL is one of these:
rtsp://:@ipnumber:554/onvif1
rtsp://:@ipnumber:554/onvif2
or
rtsp://ipnumber:554/onvif2

Normally the URL is rtsp://username:password@ipnumber:554/onvif1 but since there are no username and password it looks like above. Is this the URL you have when you check in Custom URL?

Maybe you have found a third resolution of that cam? When you add the cam as onvif you have this

What do you have in the ONVIF Profile? Do you only have 720p and this 640x360 or do you also have 320x180?

Actually on the Hi-Kam website I found that the camera have 3 resolutions HD/VGA/QVGA so it might be onvif1, onvif2 and onvif3.

I suggest the following. Connect the cam using onvif where you get this resolution 640x360 that you like. Save that. Then go back and into Custom URL and have a look at the settings on stream type and URL. Use these settings on the other camera, but change the ip-number. If the cameras are exactly the same and with the same firmware this should work.

Or go directly to Custom URL. Set stream type to rtsp_tcp or rtsp_udp. For URL use:
rtsp://ipnumber:554/onvif1 or onvif2 or onvif3

Now you have many alternative, but it should work! The cam also have audio. Only audio from the cam can be used in NCS. Depending on the audio format you should hear the sound in MCS.

-Henrik

Hello Henrik,

you are correct the camera has 3 resolutions. HD, SD and LD. SD the 620x360 is only available over the HiKam app. The Streams shown in NetCam only give me the HS and SD options. Not the SD.

No matter how I connect, it seems to be random that the SD resolution will be shown in NetCam?!?

Puzzled!

Is there some way to force the SD (640x360) in NetCam…I’m guessing no, as the stream will ned to be delivered by the camera.

The way to have control over what stream that goes from the camera to NCS you use Custom URL and set rtsp_tcp or rtsp_udp and rtsp://. If you set the URL to:

  1. rtsp://ipnumber:554/onvif1 what resolution do you get?
  2. rtsp://ipnumber:554/onvif2 what resolution do you get?

When you use Custom URL make sure that there are no data in the onvif tab! With this URL you force the cam to deliver what is predefined. If this will result in random resolution it is definitely a problem with the camera.

Can you make the camera available for me? You need to forward port 554 and also probably port 80 to login to the camera. If you can do that I can send you a PM where you can write IP, login etc. Or if I can use TeamViewer to connect to your computer?

-Henrik

I am already using custom URLs to connect…here are the results.

  1. rtsp://ipnumber:554/onvif1 what resolution do you get**? HD Resolution**
  2. rtsp://ipnumber:554/onvif2 what resolution do you get? LD Resolution

No offer of the SD 620x360. However randomly it will connect over onvif1 with this…and other times it just gives me the HD reolution. Tying onvif 0 or 3 result in no signal.

I’m going with a firmaware problem, where this “third” option has slipped through the quality net.