Several months ago we wrote about the TRENDnet TV-IP572WI and its impressive set of features bundled into a sweet $160 package. Good news — the price has come down to about $100, and we’ve had the opportunity to do some extensive testing on the new Sensr.net H.264 video player, and it works great!

This article will explain how to configure your TRENDnet TV-IP572WI to save video clips to Sensr.net by using the FTP capability of the IP-Camera. If you don’t already have a Sensr.net account… well, you should. But if you don’t, sign up free for a week; no credit card required.

Let’s get started, though. You’ll probably want to put your TV-IP572WI on your wireless network, so we’ll tackle wifi first.

Finding your IP Camera on your Local Network

Plug in your new TRENDnet to your router using an ethernet cable. Detecting the camera’s IP address can be easy, depending on your router… it wasn’t on mine, of course. With a current generation Airport Extreme base station it was definitely tricky to get it setup without downloading the TRENDnet software. That’s another guide in itself, though; so if you do have an Airport Extreme and you’re struggling to get your camera setup on it, please let me know in the comments and I’ll help out as best I can.

If you’re using a Mac, you can find your Router’s IP address by going to System Preferences -> Network -> Advanced -> TCP/IP, and you’ll see a screen that looks like this:

Once you log into your router, you’ll find a page that shows the devices currently active on your network. Something like this:

Now just enter in your camera’s IP address into a new browser window, and you should be whisked away to this screen:

The default login and password are both “admin,” sans quotes. Enter that in, and congratulations, you should see an amazing live view of your TV-IP572WI! Woohoo! From here, click “Setup,” -> “Network” -> “Wireless Setup”.

Yep, my SSID is Floo Network! I wonder how many of those there are in the world… hopefully a lot. Back on track, though — use the SSID scanner to find your network, choose the settings, and type in the password. Apply, and wait for the camera to reboot. Disconnect your TV-IP572WI from your router, and it should automatically connect to your wireless network.

Of course, now you’re presented with another hurdle — the camera’s IP address has changed! Go back to your router’s setting page, find the active devices, and enter in the new IP address into a browser window. All set. If you’ve made it to this point, it’s all downhill from here. Whew.

Add your IP Camera to your Sensr.net Account

Now log into your Sensr.net account. Go to the “My Cameras” page. Click on the “Add Camera” button – the big green “plus” sign.

Now you will begin the upload configuration process. In the first panel, give your camera a name that you like. Enter exactly the phrase “h264″ in the Model field, then press the “Next Step” button.

The second page of the setup process gives you the FTP upload credentials for your account. These consist of three things: a server name, a camera username, and a password. Write these down, because you will need to type these into the admin panel of the camera.

Click the “Next Step” button.

Tell your Camera how to upload Video Clips to Sensr.net

Now we go back to the browser window that is opened for the TV-IP572WI camera admin page. Navigate to the “Video/Audio” panel. The section marked “Video Profile 1″ configures the video encoding of uploaded clips. We recommend setting the “bps” rate (“bits-per-second”) to 256 Kbps. Higher rates tend to slow down home networks.

Now open up the “Action” panel. Here is where you configure camera to upload Video Clips to Sensr.net. Check the button labelled “Video Clip” and select “Trigger by Motion.”

The Target is FTP.  Use the server, username and password your received earlier.  Be sure to check the box for “Passive Mode.”  Press the “Save Settings” button.

Configure to Upload a clip when Motion is detected

Note that in our example we have set the “pre-event” recording duration to 5 seconds, and the Maximum duration to 10 seconds.  This means that each video clip will be 10 seconds long. This value is information we will put into the Video Settings back on the Sensr.net site.

See the Video Stream Arrive

Now we return to the browser window for Sensr.net and continue with Step 3 of the Camera setup. When your camera uploads video footage, Sensr.net will display a preview.  Remember: if you have configured your camera to upload only upon motion, you may have to wave in front of the camera to cause the motion!

Successful Upload Confirmation

Adjust the Video Settings

As a last configuration step, you should set the “segment length” parameter in the “Video Encoding” settings of your camera configuration. This parameter tells Sensr that you have configured your camera to upload equal-sized 10-second video clips.

View your Video Footage

Sensr for H.264 Video preserves much of the look and feel of Sensr original. Time is navigated by Month, Day and Hour views, as before. In the Day view, each element displays a sample image for the corresponding Hour. Over each sample image are two labels: the label in the bottom-left gives the Hour that the element represents. The label in the top-right is the “clip” count – or how many clips have been saved for that hour.

Congrats, you’re all done with the boring stuff. Time to enjoy your new TV-IP572WI! Record some cool clips, and share with your friends, or the world if you’d like. Enjoy, and please let us know what you think in the comments!

Dozens of videos of the meteor over Siberia just a few hours ago are popping up on YouTube, almost all captured from dashboard IP-Cameras, extremely prevalent in Russia. The footage is incredible.

Using our new Sensr.net app, Sensr VCam, you can use your iOS devices to easily act as a dashboard IP-Camera, streaming H.264 video to the Sensr.net cloud. Once in the cloud, your video feed can be viewed live on the device, or viewed later from the Sensr.net archive. We’ve also made it easy to share video clips on YouTube with your friend, family, or the world.

If you aren’t already a Sensr.net member, sign up for a free 7 day trial and get started using your iOS device as an on-the-go surveillance solution.

Want to write your own IP-Camera based app? Use our open Sensr.net IP-Camera API & SDK to create whatever you can dream up.

Terms of service here: terms.

Sensr.net is extending its video upload, storage and sharing solution to H.264 video streams. Sensr.net now works with a variety of devices that can transmit H.264 encoded video including off-the-shelf IP-Cams, WiFi Video cameras with “Sensr-inside” and iPhone and OSX apps. H.264 video can be viewed on supported browsers as well as Sensr.net apps for iOS and Android.

This article gives a brief overview of the Sensr.net H.264 video solution and architecture. It describes our “Push” architecture and how that solves a Firewall and security problem that faces users managing their home network. The streaming and archiving components of the Sensr.net cloud service are described as they relate to the viewing of live and archived video material.

The Problem with Firewalls

Most IP-cameras available today share the same basic architecture. They have a built-in web-server that permits device set up and that also streams video data from the camera for viewing. Connecting to the camera by its IP address provides access to the camera set up controls and its live feed. Standard web browsers can be used to configure and view the camera because of the presence of the built-in webserver.

The mechanism by which remote viewing works is that the app sends a request to the camera to provide a viewing stream. For this to happen, the viewer app needs to be able to find the camera, and it needs to be able to send a request to it. If the viewer app and the camera are both on the same Local Area Network (LAN), then this generally works well.

The general architecture of this two device client-server relationship was established a long time ago when video streams were shared within the enterprise, or perhaps on a dedicated video network managed by an IT team. Networking has evolved quickly over the last decade, however, and most homeowners are now their own IT managers.

These days, homeowners often install their own router and manage their own home network.  Many homes have over a dozen  devices connecting to the network. The basic camera architecture has not evolved, however, and what was appropriate for the enterprise is not necessarily appropriate for the home. It’s time to rethink how these cameras operate.

Viewing within the home is fine

Almost every home in the United States today is protected by a local firewall built into the router.  The job of the firewall is to reject foreign web traffic to protect devices within the home from attack from outside the home.

Recall that for a camera viewer app to access the image stream of a camera, it needs to send a viewing request to the camera. When the viewing app is outside of the home, it looks like foreign web traffice to the firewall. If the firewall is doing its job, it simply drops this request in the trashcan and refuses to pass it on to the camera.

Your home remains safe from foreign traffic, but it is also inaccessible to you.  So it’s not easy for you to view your camera.

Your firewall prevents viewing from outside

One way around the firewall limitation is to punch “holes” in your firewall. Most home routers have a management interface in which you can describe rules for internet traffic destined for particular devices on your network. These interfaces vary widely, are not that easy for people to set up, and if done wrong can leave your network open to a security problem.

Firewall holes are a security risk

The Sensr.net video architecture re-defines the camera as a “client” of the cloud, instead of an isolated “server” in the home. This re-thinking is possible because of the emergence of cloud services, and the fact that today’s home networks are always connected to the internet.

Instead of asking the camera to run a server that can fulfill requests for video feeds, the camera is operated as a client that pushes video clips up to the cloud. This is a fundamental re-thinking of the camera: instead of the camera needing to act in isolation, it can assume that web-services are available from the cloud … in the form of Sensr.net. The basic service provided by the cloud is an upload account to Push video data to.  Firewalls are not a problem in this case, because devices inside the home can always initiate connections to outside of the home.

Once the video data is in the cloud, it can be viewed on different types of devices, from anywhere on the internet. Sensr.net viewers are clients of the cloud as well, and the cloud architecture ensures that the viewers do not encounter firewall problems.

Devices can securely "push" data out of the home

What is an Upload Account?

As a client of Sensr.net, your camera is granted an upload account when you sign it up. Most cameras can use FTP, so we create an FTP upload account for each new camera. The FTP account consists of three things:

• an upload server,
• a username,
• and a password.

Sensr.net creates FTP upload accounts for your cameras

You can use the FTP upload account with off-the-shelf cameras that can send video clips to an FTP server. Open up the admin interface on your camera to access its settings panel. On the page where you define video clips, set the upload server, username and password to the items in the FTP upload account for your camera.

Your camera is now a client of Sensr.net, and it can push video data to the Sensr.net cloud. Sensr.net can accept H.264 video data in a variety of container formats including .mp4 files, .avi files and .ts segments.

Program your camera to upload its data to Sensr

Push using HTTP

Sensr.net also accepts video data using HTTP Push.  Off-the-shelf cameras do not usually offer an HTTP Push option, but for developers of video recording Apps this is a better option that offers enhanced security.  The FTP upload account information above becomes authentication and hostname information in the HTTP Upload URL.

https://cam28809:abcdefg123@v2.sensr.net/upload/cam28809

The Sensr.net Cloud Architecture

The Sensr.net video cloud architecture consists of two main parts: a live streaming server, and an archiver. The live streaming server is responsible for receiving video clip uploads and streaming the received clips back out for viewing. The live streaming server is optimized for low-latency turnaround. The archiver works in the background, and it is responsible for storing the received video clips in the database.

A video upload stream consists of a series of movie clips that may or may not represent continuous time. If the camera is capable of it, it can continuously send video clips to record 24/7. Alternatively, a camera might be configured to send a video clip only upon a motion event, or intruder detection. In this case, video clips would be sent intermittantly, at irregular intervals.

Sensr.net video processing separates the Live server and the Archive server

When Sensr.net renders the Live view for your camera, it is setting up a connection to the Live Streaming Server for your camera. Video clips received by Sensr.net are immediately transmitted to your viewer app as they are received. The latency from the time a scene is recorded until the time a scene can be viewed is generally on the order of 3 or 4 video clips. If your camera sends 3-second video clips, the observed latency will be around 9 to 12 seconds.

Sensr's Live view is a low-latency replay

When Sensr.net renders the Hour, Day or Month view for your camera, it is querying the Sensr.net Archive Server for your camera. The archive server processes the video data in the background before storing it in the database. Once archived, the video data is stored with very high reliability in Amazon AWS S3. There can be a delay of up to 2 minutes from the time a scene is recorded until the scene is available for viewing from the archive server. Archived video data is stored in a variety of formats for quick access and easy rendering.

The Archive view is delievered from our database

The Sensr.net API (Application Programming Interface) [ URL ] provides access to the video data for your camera from both the Live Streaming Server and the Archive Server. API calls allow you to list your cameras, access the various feeds of your camera, and allow you to change the more mundane properties of your camera, like its name. The Sensr.net API is the same one we build our own apps with. You can read more about it here: http://api.sensr.net.

Access your data using our APIs and your favorite Programming Language

Conclusion

This article introduces the Sensr.net H.264 Video storage architecture and gives some of the rationale for its design. Historically, IP-Cams have operated as self-contained web-servers. With the advent of cloud services, it makes sense to rethink these devices as clients. With this reversal of roles, a number of problems vanish: the Firewall is no longer an obstacle, and homeowners do not need to weigh the risks of opening a hole in their Firewall.

Sensr.net partitions the roles of serving streaming content and archived content into two portions. For lower latency, the streaming server is optimized to copy video clip uploads out to viewers as soon as possible. The archiver is optimized for long-term reliability and ensures that received video clips remain available permanently.

The team at Sensr.net is excited to announce that the latest version of our API  is live and available for your use! Want to build your own iPad app? You can do that. Want to write a script to download images from your camera and generate a timelapse movie? You can do that too. Want to hack a custom IP camera with a Raspberry Pi pushing to Sensr.net, bring it on!

Access data with the Ruby Binding

Endless Uses:

• Develop an IP-camera mobile upload application (like SensrCam Pro in the Apple App Store).
• Download images from a camera and pipe them into ffmpeg to generate a time-lapse movie.
• Analyze motion events and build a trend analysis graph for a camera or multiple cameras.
• Make your own custom IP camera with a Rapberry Pi and a USB camera.

Features:

• Access stored camera images or videos.
• Create cameras – jpeg or video supported.
• Easy authorization for web applications, desktop applications, mobile phones, and devices with AOuth2.
• Provision new users and new cameras.  (requires Sensr Partner status)

Sensr.net is the only IP-Camera cloud platform to offer an API. You can check out our new landing page for all API-related content above. If you have any questions, or want to write in with comments, send us a message at developer@sensr.net. Happy hacking!

Terms of service here: terms.

Grandstream announced a series of three new H.264 IP cameras last week, the GXV3672_HD, GXV3672_FHD, and GXV3662_FHD. While they’re all H.264 enabled IP cameras, the 3672_HD and 3672_FHD are both outdoor night vision cameras equipped with weatherproof cases, available for $329 and $499, respectively.

The GVX3662_FHD, even more impressively, is loaded with a 3.1 Megapixel CMOS sensor and streams video at full 1080p HD, coming in at a whopping $599. If extremely clear, high quality footage is important to you though, it’s likely worth the price — but the camera certainly not for the average consumer. If you pick any of these IP cams up later this month, put em’ on Sensr.net and let us know how they perform!

And if you’re interested in an entry-level H.264 IP camera, check out the D-Link DCS-942L (~$130), or TRENDnet’s TV-IP572WI (~$100).