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Security camera feeds onto house TV's?

Posted: Tue Jan 04, 2022 1:13 pm
by immortality
OK, here is a good question for the tech guys out there.

Currently I run a synology server and run their security video software and 5 security cameras around the outside of the house. To view the camera feeds I need to login to the server (from my laptop or mobile phone) to check the camera feeds and see what is happening (but this is slow and cumbersome). What I would like to do is display that feed on any of the TV's located around the house if possible?

The house is fully wired for internet (cat6) and all the TV's have wired network cable sockets nearby, all the TV's get their digital signals via a signal booster/splitter box via coax cables.

Ideally, I'd like to transmit the camera feeds signal over the coax cable system so I can access the camera feeds from any TV in the house.

One possibility would be to run something like a Raspberry Pi and use a HDMI cable into the back of the TV to access the camera feeds but that limits the output from the Pi to a single TV.

Any suggests or ideas are most welcome.

Re: Security camera feeds onto house TV's?

Posted: Tue Jan 04, 2022 1:32 pm
by antus
I'd put a chromecast on each tv and display the phone on it when your nearby and wanting the feature. Or, if thats too clumsy then android tv boxes if they can run the synology app, even better if they have ethernet. Perhaps something like https://www.ebay.com.au/itm/284585573296 though Ive never seen or tried one myself.

Re: Security camera feeds onto house TV's?

Posted: Tue Jan 04, 2022 2:09 pm
by immortality
The biggest issue with the app on the phone is it takes ages to load, the synology system isn't the most powerful and takes a bit to fire up.

Re: Security camera feeds onto house TV's?

Posted: Tue Jan 04, 2022 2:27 pm
by immortality
An android box top would be cheaper than a Raspberry Pi. That might be the go unless someone has a better idea?

Re: Security camera feeds onto house TV's?

Posted: Tue Jan 04, 2022 2:27 pm
by MudDuck514
RF Modulator?

I do not know if there are any for ATSC signals available, but the old NTSC ones could output on Channel 3 or 4.

Re: Security camera feeds onto house TV's?

Posted: Tue Jan 04, 2022 3:11 pm
by antus
Then you also either only get interlaced 576i in 4:3 aspect (which might be ok, if you only want to see a car and a person come to the door), or you need to go high end hdmi to AHD, then also need decoders on the pc, and you need a way to generate the signal off the nas, and switch channels, from all the locations. It could be done, but the cost would be a lot more than putting cheap players on all of the tvs. I think pi is out, unless you run windows on it, and even then the windows app may not work on arm cpu. The windows app will be harder to run than the android app (on arm) which is why my head ended up back at android STB.

Or dont use the synology and get something like a dahua NVR, then you can get an ONVIF RTP stream out of it as data, and then you have a larger selection of player software. Or, if the synology app does support onvif / rtp streaming, or the cameras can stream onvif / rtp and are not overloaded with 2 clients (tv + nas) then you could watch the streams straight off the cams. But even so, your back to needing something pc like at the other end, just with greater software selection. This is similar to my model nas. Im not going to say its perfect, but its not bad and a lot better than some of the junk out there. https://www.ebay.com.au/itm/274775092981

I personally run a dahua nvr with a 4TB wd purple drive, and gDMSS on my phone and smartPSS on the pcs to watch live, or recorded playback. I used to run free (on the rpi 2+ and small scale arm) software called orchid core, saving back to my nas, but I started having stability problems with it (the free version is unsupported - though I tried to help them bugfix with core dumps of the crash), and then I updated my cams to h265 streams which orchid never supported and neither did the browsers for the browser based client so that was the end of that. A pitty because it ticked a lot of boxes.

Re: Security camera feeds onto house TV's?

Posted: Thu Jan 06, 2022 12:30 pm
by antus
Ive been thinking about this, if you did want to go the co-ax to tvs, I think you'd be looking at something like this. https://www.ebay.com.au/itm/254776617650 Im not sure if it'd add a new channel and passthrough the antenna from the RF in, or if it'd mean you loose the ability to receive broadcast tv when you use it. I suspect the latter, because I cant see that 1 antenna would collect enough signal to feed off to 6 TVs, including after losses at the splitters and this device. You'd also have no channel selection and need a pc outputting the feed in hdmi full time. The winning search term to get the right pieces of hardware was "dvb modulator"

Re: Security camera feeds onto house TV's?

Posted: Sat Jan 08, 2022 6:40 pm
by Cincinnatus
Was looking at new atsc 3.0 tuners and stumbled upon HDMI to rf or atsc converters. So you could send your camera signal (if it's HDMI out) on your coax as a channel to all your TV's. Found them on Amazon. Multicom and Thor were the two brands I saw. Around $300 for multicom and $500 for the Thor. Might be a solution

Re: Security camera feeds onto house TV's?

Posted: Sat Jan 08, 2022 6:45 pm
by immortality
Thanks, will check it out.

This might work.

https://www.amazon.com/Multicom-MUL-HDE ... 277&sr=8-2

Re: Security camera feeds onto house TV's?

Posted: Sun Jan 09, 2022 10:15 am
by antus
Just make sure your tv can do ATSC (the American Broadcast standard), and consider if you still need your broadcast channels as I'm not sure you can plug this and a normal antenna in at the same time.

Also if you do decide to update your NAS or move the cams to their own NVR down the track, most dedicated NVR have a HDMI out and a mouse (but no keyboard - the interface is built so you can use it mouse only) and you can put a couple of channels on split screen and then you could transmit that to the TVs.