Remote view CCDTV on Android 2.0

[Anotherdroid]

Is it possible to view a web capable video surveillance system on the Motorola Droid?

[cwcentral]

(It's CCTV... ) Well, it depends. The device is definitely capable hardware wise and the network connection can typically support a 64kbits connection (easy, and the minimum for a good CCTV system).

If you're looking for real-time access and admin, problem comes on which vendor's software you are using. The majority of vendors use ActiveX to connect to a CCTV server, because they can take advantage of directX display performance and a boat load of video/audio codecs (directshow, etc..)--and.... it's Windows: that's what most folks have for an OS and it's cheap to built turn-key systems, and requires no technical smarts... A good portion of vendors also supply Java compatibility, BUT they use traditional Applets (again to use the video card natively), which Android does not support (yet). Also, most remote admin tools are ActiveX as well. Hence, most CCTV professionals still use WinMo phones (it runs activeX, can do real-time video, and stays in the ecosystem admin-wise).

For real-time viewing, I have custom software that does ajax calls to post MJPEG formatted video, but to get 30fps, time-synced, and jitter-free on AJAX is a bit of a challenge, mind it needs to also run on EDGE. Android appears to have problems with RTSP (which can used for video teleconf too) which would be the best solution.

Otherwise, if you need access to just to do periodic views or non-real-time viewing (e.g. download videos), Android will support systems that output wmv, 3gp, h.263/4--most CCTV softwares provide those formats to download. Most servers also provide snapshot access via a simple URL with a refresh (1-2sec), which Android does fine. If don't need real-time access, and just video of motion activated intervals, nearly all CCTV systems will allow setup of a email or SMS trigger to a video link you can download and pay in the mediaplayer.

What setup are you thinking of? I run a AverMedia NV5000 (Windows Server) and it works good with my G1 for non-real-time access (emails, video playback, triggers, admin, etc..). For real-time viewing, I use my custom app.

[buzzy]

Yeah this is what I also found out, Android is not so smart at all!!
So Symbian can handle RTSP but Android not!
So what about all the 3GPP compliant Wi-Fi cameras worldwide, cannot be viewd by an Android phone?
What a pity....
So I hope some smart guys can do something about it before Nokia kicks the ass out of Android :-(