Notes:
The Audio must be attached to the IP camera via an audio cable from the auctioneers mixer and not come from a separate source. For example, you can not use the video on the IP camera and and audio input on the PC for the Simulcast.
- Auction Edge does not install Simulcast hardware. Please partner with an installation professional if you're going to use IP cameras.
- A couple of examples we've seen installed are:
Hikvision
VITEK
VTC-TNB4RFA3-2
ALIBI
U001-103
Item 0235TlTH
Non Chinese made and GSA approved:
Turing Model: TP-MMB4AV2
- DO NOT set the stream higher than 640x480. This can cause audio/video cutouts in the stream (for IT company)
- IP cameras require a software setup by Auction Frontier once access to the camera is established which can take a day or two.
- The Velocicast online recording feature (cloud DVR) is Now supported with IP Cameras!
- The Velocicast mobile app supports IP camera streams
- The video resolution output to the streamer matches the current settings for analog cameras. Anything above 640x480 resolution will not be used.
- Test the rtsp url with VLC player by opening a network stream. Make sure you see video and hear audio when the auction does a mic check.
IP Camera requirements / Supported Codecs
- IP Camera must support the rtsp protocol.
- At this point we have only sampled a very small subset of cameras and codecs here is what we know so far:
- audio codecs
- that will work
- G.711alaw
- MP2L2
- that will NOTwork
- G.722.1
- G.711ulaw
- G.726
- that will work
- video codecs
- that will NOT work
- Motion Jpeg
- that will NOT work
- audio codecs
General instructions on how the customer sets up the ip cameras with the firewall
IP cameras must be directly routable from the velocicast system therefore its the customers responsibility to expose the cameras to the outside world. This can be done in many different ways depending on the network, equipment, and administrator skill level. One easy and secure way that works with the majority of consumer grade gateway routers is to use port forwarding. Please see your router setup information to properly configure port forwarding. For your convenience the general idea is that the ip camera has a specific lan IP (something like 192.168.1.100) and a port exposed at that lan IP that is serving the rtsp stream (the actual video/audio). Within your gateway router's admin console (the device that connects directly to your internet providers ethernet, fiber, or coax...) your will be asked for the lan IP and the port that should be forwarded then you select a port number that you want exposed to the outside world, for example 9554. You will then need to provide your external IP address (if you do not have a static IP address we recommend contacting support). You can figure this address out by visiting http://www.showmyipaddress.com/
Now that you have gathered the external ip address and the exposed port number you will need to gather the path to the stream and the authentication credentials to the audio/video stream. Both of these pieces of information are specific to the IP camera make/model so please review your cameras documentation. Keep in mind authentication is recommended but not required. If authentication is used make note if the `username` and `password`.
Here is an example of how to assemble the gathered information into a uri to be provided to Auction Frontier:
- If camera is using authentication
- rtsp://<username>:<password>@<external-ip-address>:<exposed-port>/<path-to-your-stream>
- rtsp://afrontier:1234@66.1.11.111:9554/cam/realmonitor?channel=1&subtype=1
- If camera is using *NOT* authentication
- rtsp://<external-ip-address>:<exposed-port>/<path-to-your-stream>
- rtsp://66.1.11.111:9554/cam/realmonitor?channel=1&subtype=1
Information to be provided by the customer
- Customer Info (used to look them up in the database)
- at least the name
- IP camera info (provided for each camera)
- name
- Name displayed to the user on the streamer page
- uri
- This includes credentials and port information
- name