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OpenIPC: Alternative open firmware for your IP camera

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Re: OpenIPC: Alternative open firmware for your IP camera

#41

Post by swores »

neodypsis wrote: post #29
KennyBlanken wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> OpenIPC source code is released under one of the most simple open source license agreements, MIT License, giving users express permission to reuse code for any purpose, even as part of a proprietary software. We only ask you politely to contribute your improvements back to us. We would be grateful for any feedback and suggestions. Edit: since people are arguing with me, the text I quoted is right of the main page f…

> Majestic code while is not open, provides unprecedented performance and capabilities for a wide range of hardware. The author of Majestic streamer is looking into possibilities to open-source the codebase after he secures enough funds to support further open development. You can help to make it happen sooner. Source: https://openipc.org/

That comes after this:

> OpenIPC Firmware uses Buildroot to build its Linux distro, and utilizes either Majestic, Mini or Venc streamer.

Which makes it sound like Majestic isn't required? Or is it the only good option, or something?

Re: OpenIPC: Alternative open firmware for your IP camera

#43

Post by obituary_latte »

s1gnp0st wrote: post #8
fcpk wrote: post #5

Totally random question there but... Any recommendations of cameras that are currently easily available(say amazon, aliexpress, etc) and support this while having good/verygood image quality?

Seconded. I previously bought some that I thought were supported, before finding out that they are not. It'd be great to know whether anyone has had success with particular hardware.

They have a device/chip compatibility list here: https://github.com/OpenIPC/wiki/blob/master/en/guide-support...

Re: OpenIPC: Alternative open firmware for your IP camera

#44

Post by neodypsis »

swores wrote: post #41
neodypsis wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Majestic code while is not open, provides unprecedented performance and capabilities for a wide range of hardware. The author of Majestic streamer is looking into possibilities to open-source the codebase after he secures enough funds to support further open development. You can help to make it happen sooner. Source: https://openipc.org/

That comes after this: > OpenIPC Firmware uses Buildroot to build its Linux distro, and utilizes either Majestic, Mini or Venc streamer. Which makes it sound like Majestic isn't required? Or is it the only good option, or something?

I checked the repos for those alternatives. They state that they are not as feature-complete, nor as widely supported, as Majestic is.

Re: OpenIPC: Alternative open firmware for your IP camera

#45

Post by petabytes »

Related: I was hacking Ambarella action cameras a while back: https://github.com/petabyt/liemoth

Eventually I stopped not because of how low quality action cameras were, there were hundreds of different vendors publishing rebranded Chinese cheap cams. And not to mention how crap the firmware is. The whole thing gets hot and the battery only lasts a few minutes.

Re: OpenIPC: Alternative open firmware for your IP camera

#46

Post by vineyardmike »

protastus wrote: post #33
the_biot wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's the problem right there: the Linux kernel situtation. As OP noted they just use the vendor's (long outdated) Linux kernel, with the vendor's (typically crap) kernel drivers. They just don't clean up that situation in that project, let alone try to mainline the drivers. It's where I thought I could help, but... see my other post on why that didn't work out. With mainline-supported cameras using a standard API,…

That's the rotten situation with embedded Linux. Nearly all silicon vendors ship a highly modified kernel with proprietary drivers and firmware. Nothing gets upstreamed. The code quality is low and the changes are not architecturally sound, so patches wouldn't get accepted by OSS maintainers in their current state. Vendors end up with countless forks of the kernel, system libraries and system services (at least one f…

And this is one of the big reasons that Raspberry Pis are so popular despite an endless supply of alternatives - it's basically the only well-documented and supported embedded linux. Almost every other dev board that competes with them has limited support and outdated kernels and countless other issues.

Re: OpenIPC: Alternative open firmware for your IP camera

#47

Post by spease »

bastard_op wrote: post #23

Having looked into this myself prior was mostly asking for disappointment. Getting a random Chinese IP camera to convert to open firmware is great in theory, but the problem is actually buying a camera or 10, or buying more over time. You never really know what hardware ships internally at any given time, ie what SoC a camera really is. They change frequently in random Chinese manufacturers with internal SoC hardware…

I’ve been thinking about something like this. Anyone else interesting in working on this?

Re: OpenIPC: Alternative open firmware for your IP camera

#48

Post by askiiart »

scottlamb wrote: post #39
the_biot wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I expect you'll get flak for #1, but the morality aspect of it bothers me a great deal as well. Not just supporting products of companies that contribute to China's surveillance state, but I worry that writing open source software contributes to surveillance everywhere as well. I don't have an answer :-(

> Not just supporting products of companies that contribute to China's surveillance state, but I worry that writing open source software contributes to surveillance everywhere as well. This part doesn't bother me. Making open source software available for general purpose needs equalizes things, which I consider an improvement. See e.g. what happens when folks have cameras pointed at the cops slowly murdering George F…

Sorry, but I think you meant George Floyd? I can't find anything about a "George Flynn" being murdered by cops.

Re: OpenIPC: Alternative open firmware for your IP camera

#49

Post by AnthonyMouse »

protastus wrote: post #33
the_biot wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's the problem right there: the Linux kernel situtation. As OP noted they just use the vendor's (long outdated) Linux kernel, with the vendor's (typically crap) kernel drivers. They just don't clean up that situation in that project, let alone try to mainline the drivers. It's where I thought I could help, but... see my other post on why that didn't work out. With mainline-supported cameras using a standard API,…

That's the rotten situation with embedded Linux. Nearly all silicon vendors ship a highly modified kernel with proprietary drivers and firmware. Nothing gets upstreamed. The code quality is low and the changes are not architecturally sound, so patches wouldn't get accepted by OSS maintainers in their current state. Vendors end up with countless forks of the kernel, system libraries and system services (at least one f…

This is such a weird market. Most embedded devices are purchased by randos who don't know what they're getting themselves into.

By contrast, security cameras are disproportionately purchased by, I'm guessing, security professionals. Often the security staff at large corporations that are buying cameras in volume. If there was any camera that was otherwise competitive and had mainline kernel drivers and open source firmware, would anybody even buy anything else?

Do the manufacturers not realize this?

Re: OpenIPC: Alternative open firmware for your IP camera

#50

Post by bradknowles »

scottlamb wrote: post #37
jauntywundrkind wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh man I didn't realize that when I last ran into this project. I wonder how hard it would be to run your own streamer pipeline or whatnot on these things? How far a starting place do we get when we install our own Linux; do peripherals (camera networking) work or is there a bunch of special sauce in userland running half the hardware?

> I wonder how hard it would be to run your own streamer pipeline or whatnot on these things? Agree with the_biot: The actual streaming component is not too hard. If this were the biggest problem, I'd be thrilled to contribute to (or just write) an open source streaming server to complement my open source NVR. [1] The driver situation is indeed a bit harder—these things don't just have mainline Linux support with v4l…

For me, I want cameras that will meet most of these same requirements, but are battery powered WiFi cameras, and don't require the use of a cloud service to operate.

Reolink makes decent cameras, but their battery models don't work with the Reolink NVR.

Arlo requires a cloud service.

Eufy has a home hub, but I don't know yet how well it actually works. I've seen some reviews, and I've actually bought a hub plus a couple of cameras, but I haven't tried to put it into actual use yet.

And I want this system to also support regular WiFi cameras, as well as PoE cameras.

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