PC Access 3.14a is out, along with OmniTouch FW 1.7

[jcd]

I finally got a chance to update everything to the latest and try out the pop ups on my OT7. Works really well. SJ

 
SJ, would you kindly share:

1. # of cameras
2. Brand/model of cameras
3. Resolution settings (XxY) of camera streams and format (JPEG/MJPEG)
4. # of touchscreens in your installation
5. How many screens pop at once (i.e, do you have only a camera pop on a single OT7, or are you trying to get that camera to pop on 10-12 touchscreens?)

I've pretty much given up, as I still get instant results manually but only sporadic connections when driven through events.
 
Your feedback would help me greatly.
 
Thanks,
Jcd

 

[sjht]

I have a fairly simple setup. I have three cameras all are HAI/Leviton IP models. In the extended setup, they are all setup as MPEG with the specific MPEG streaming address for each one. Quality is HIGH and resolution is 640x480. I only have one OT7 by our front door. I'm only popping up one camera for our front door porch area. Screen pops up based on a motion detector going to NOT SECURE. I also tested it with our front door opening and that zone going to NOT SECURE. Hasn't failed once (yet). SJ

 

[jcd]

Thanks much SJ.
 
That helps - to know that you have a pretty straight-forward install. At this point, my hypothesis is that Leviton did not design the system for any sort of scale - it was designed for one or two, maybe three touchscreens, tops.  My personal home system has nine touchscreens, and I have a couple client installs with a few more than that.
 
So maybe it's just a timeout issue... I would think that even if network throughput was a bottleneck, at least the screens 3-n would catch-up after a bit of a delay. My experience is that a couple screens get the feed (whichever ones get it first, as it is random which screens get the feed and which do not), and the rest just hang/freeze in the "Establishing Connection" screen until they either go back to sleep or are prompted by another trigger.
 
I appreciate the input, so thanks again.
 
Cheers,
Jcd

 

[rhombixt]

Silly question but how many simultaneous feeds are you allowed on your camera's? Some are limited by feeds and do you have multicast enabled on your Cisco? If you don't, then the instant request for camera feeds might get blocked.

 

[jcd]

Hi rhombixt,
 
The Toshiba cameras support four simultaneous feeds. Not a silly question at all!
 
On the switch, are you suggesting to enable multicast filtering and specify specific the IP's of the touchscreens so that I don't flood all the ports with traffic? I know enough to understand this only vaguely, and I'm not sure what this will buy me?
 
Right now there is a setting for "Unregistered Multicast" and for it all ports are set to "Forwarding" versus "Filtering" - but here again, there are some nine different configuration pages for the switch administration and as I am not a network engineer, I am hesitant to tinker with things here that I do not understand...
 
Cheers,
Jcd
 

 

[avpman2]

I'm not sure this has anything to do with your issue, but I've noticed from time to time that the Omni is sluggish in responding to automation commands. From what I've been told by HAI/Leviton the OPII queues the commands and then executes them serially (FIFO.)
 
I have a suspcion of what might be happening. (I apologize in advance for the very basic level of detailed steps.) If your game, try this:
1) Make sure you have a current backup (or even two) of the production .PCA file which is currently loaded in the controller. Just use windows explorer and make a couple of copies of the current file. If you have a thumbdrive with you I'd also make a copy to it as well - Murphy's Law.
2) Within PCAccess delete all of your existing automation blocks. Everything.
3) Now create only one new automation block; for simplicity sake, assign any user button you already have setup as the automation block's trigger.
4) In the automation block put only the most basic code required to pop-up a camera on a single OT7 pad. Add a console beep (to one standard system console only - not to all consoles and not to a touchpad) at the beginning and end of the code. Beep 1 at the beginning of the code block and a Beep 2 at the end.
Example:
     WHEN Button 1
            THEN Standard Console BEEP 1
            THEN SHOW CAMERA Front Door Camera ON TOUCHSCREEN x
            THEN Standard Console BEEP 2
 
5) Save the bare bones PCA file with this single block of automation code and write it back to the controller. (Leave all checkmarks checked when the dialog box asks what you want to load.)
6) Now test the automated pop-up by initiating whatever trigger you decided to use for testing in step 3 above.
7) Make note of the order of playback of events after you inititate the trigger. (I.E. did it go Beep1, Image popped up, Beep2 OR Beep1,Beep2, then Image popped up, etc.) The beeps are there just to give the controller something to do before and after executing the pop-up as well as to verify the automation block is indeed being triggered, and to get an idea of how the controller queued the commands.
 
Did the performance and repeatibility of the pop-up improve? Did the sequence of the automation block execute in the exact order as written?
If there was no improvement, remove the console beeps from the automation block and try again.
(Obviously - Don't forget to copy the backed up production PCA file over the barebones file and load it back into the controller when done testing.)
 
Let me know how it works out. I hope this produces some good intel.

 

[longwa]

I just setup 3 Hikvision DSC-2032-I cameras and two Foscam 8910W and I'm experiencing the same random connection issues with all 5 cameras.
 
It seems like the initial connection 'handshake' is just not being done properly on the OT7. When I first go to the camera page, I'd say only about 20% of the time does the initial preview pop up, otherwise it just says Establishing Connection. If I just click on the camera icon again, it will usually show up. The same thing happens when going into full screen mode. My success rate on the Hikvision is about 80% of the time when I click on the full screen view, it shows the video feed after about 1 second and the other times just black screen with Establishing Connection. If I exit out of the full screen mode and re-enter it, eventually it will work.
 
I've never seen this type of behavior with any of the other apps or my Synology NAS.
 
I'd say the popups are experiencing the same thing except they don't have any kind of retry option so they have a low success rate.
 
I've tried playing around the the I-frame interval on the camera to see if it can send more full frames but it's hard to see what's happening. Maybe enabling network snooping would allow me to see the packets and see what payload the OT7 is getting whenever it fails to initialize.

 

[jcd]

I'm happy (in an odd way) to see that others are having the same issue... FWIW, I've tried every single permutation of camera resolution settings, tried different cameras, changed the switch infrastructure and connections etc. and never could get the problem to go away.
 
My conclusion is simply that the HAI system is "designed" for installations with only a touchscreen or two, and perhaps only a few cameras.
 
Pity.

 

[eddy]

One question I have:
 
How many simultaneous connections can the cameras support?
 
If the IP cameras only have enough "power" to stream 4 simultaneous connections (one of which is already in use full-time by an NVR) and then the camera gets slammed with 7-8 simultaneous connection requests (one from each OmniTouch) it could explain why the connections don't succeed. This would also explain why the cameras appear to function properly when viewing them manually from an OmniTouch.

 

[longwa]

I only have a single OmniTouch and 5 cameras (two different brands). The OmniTouch is actually the only device on the network pointed at the MJPEG sub-stream URL, everything else is using the Main Stream which is h.264 and HD resolution (and supports 4 streams, as you said).
 
I will say, after using it for a week or so, the Foscam cameras seem to fail much more often than the Hikvision. They also generally take about 2 seconds longer to display the image when I click on them.
 
I also noticed that repeated requests quickly to the same camera will almost always result in just the Establishing Connection screen. For example, if I click on the little thumbnail view and before it displays, click on the full screen view it will almost always just get stuck on the EC screen. However, if I wait for the preview image to appear and then click fullscreen, it will usually work. This is especially problematic for popups since my motion sensor kept triggering the event multiple times quickly. I had hoped it would be a no-op on the OT7 when it was already popped up, but that doesn't seem to be the case. I finally just set a timer flag for motion which ensures it only fires once per hour. It's not perfect, but it definitely seems to have helped.
 
It just seems like the OT7 team needs to beef up their retry and connection handling a tad more. It's close, but not quite there yet.

 

[dwalt]

I am having a slightly different problem.
I set up 2 cameras as a test. One an old Axis 205 in the office. The Axis stream is mjpg.
The other a public camera on a mountain. The public camera stream is jpg.
Both cameras work fine manually on the OT7. When I program a pop up the remote camera works great it pops up immediately. The Axis gives me the "establishing connection" screen forever.
I tried the Axis as both a straight ip configured as Axis type and the actual mjpg stream configured as mjpg. No difference the remote camera using a jpg url works fast and the Axis is stuck at EC.
When I go back and select the cameras manually on the OT7 they both work and show an image fast....

 

[Deafbykhorns]

Panasonic cameras work flawlessly on my system
2 Touchscreen, 4 cameras

 

[feobrien]

I have a Speco NVR and have been unabe to connect to the Omnitouch. I dont know what the appropriate URL. Has anyone had any success?