I am looking a current list of cameras that are compatible with the Pearl-2. I found an older topic, List of cameras that play nice with Webcaster X2 that links to http://updates.epiphan.com/downloads/Cameras.xlsx but that list hasn’t been updated since 2018. Is there a current list of IP cameras that are compatible with the Pearl-2? Preferably a panoramic camera.
Ah that Webcaster cameras topic is specific to cameras with HDMI output that will be compatible with the Webcaster X2. More HDMI cameras then are on there would work with a Pearl-2.
But for IP cameras, we don’t have any list unfortunately. Basically any camera with an RTSP stream output should work here!
My current IP cameras do support RTSP, but the Peal-2 complains about time synchronization. I talked with the camera manufacturer and they won’t add/fix it. Is there something specific I should be asking a IP camera manufacturer about time synchronization? When I mention it, they always tell me that Yes they support NTP.
Without time synchronization the RTSP feed will still work, just it isn’t ideal. Unfortunately it doesn’t seem that IP camera manufacturers list this as a specification anywhere. I would just use the current cameras you have, unless you are running into a problem with them beyond the warning message?
The cameras audio and video are out of sync if I don’t reboot the Pearl-2 before we stream. After the reboot everything is fine. After about a day the audio and video are out of sync. We do a clap to test for sync and sometimes you can hear the clap a full second before you see my arms move. I was hoping that getting a camera that supported the time synchronization that Epiphan uses the problem would go away.
Hmm ok, that is still strange that it becomes so out of sync. Have you tried changing the options for preferred transport to TCP and/or disabling hardware acceleration?
I just changed channel 1’s Video encoding preset to software instead of hardware acceleration. I don’t see where I should set the preferred transport to TCP.
Ah sorry, I don’t mean the encoding settings for the channel. I meant settings on the RTSP input for the IP camera. Here you will see options for software decoding and TCP transport. These settings can help with compatibility.
OK. I changed the channel back to hardware accelerated. I found the settings you suggested and made the changes. I will test the cameras shortly. The cameras support H.264, H.264+, and H.265. The cameras are set to use H.264 as the Pearl-2 doesn’t support H.264+ or H.265. Is this still the case? We are running firmware 4.9.1i
That is indeed still the case, the RTSP stream must be in H.264 as you have set currently
I have disabled hardware acceleration and set the transport to TCP on the RSTP streams but the cameras still get out of sync. If I reboot the cameras, it helps but they get out of sync with each other. The only thing that seems to work with reliability is rebooting the Pearl-2. I am running 4.10.0k
Hmm, ok this sounds like it must just be time sync between the cameras and Pearl after all. You mentioned that the cameras support NTP? Have you tried enabling the NTP server on the Pearl’s Date and Time page, then pointing the cameras to sync time via NTP with the Pearl’s IP address?
Yes. That is how the cameras are currently setup to get their time. The cameras NTP sync their time from the Pearl-2, which NTP syncs from the router, which is synced with a Level 1 time source.
Ah, unfortunately we are indeed just down to some kind of compatibility problem with these cameras and the Pearl-2. Sorry to say, but there isn’t anything more I can suggest to fix this for the time being. Can you tell me what the make and model of the cameras are so that I can make a note of this for the development team?
The manufacturer is Alibi security cameras. We tried ALI-NP1018VR and the ALI-NS2128VR cameras. Based the history of the company I would say most if not all of their recent cameras will not work perfectly with a Pearl-2. I say this as their newer cameras use the same firmware. Yes we are running the most recent version of firmware on the cameras too. Is there any special phrase that I should be mentioning to camera manufacturers to check compatibly? As I said earlier, if I mention time sync they think NTP, if I say that the time has to be embedded into the stream they don’t know what I am talking about? Is there some sort of specification that I can reference?
Thanks for the information. As for the standard for time sync, I don’t know what this is formally called but it would just be the time stamps within the RTSP stream. For camera compatibility we haven’t seen or heard of an error like this before. We know that IP cameras from Axis, Panasonic, and Sony certainly work properly here.