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A comment on Managing and using ONVIF IP cameras with Linux. Parent comment

Re:Managing and using ONVIF IP cameras with Linux by scottlamb on Thursday October 20, 2022 @02:13PM (#33278527)
The ONVIF SOAP APIs aren't really that important IMHO. They're mostly used for configuration. Configuring your camera is something you do rarely, and if you have to put up with some crappy web interface, proprietary plugin, or Windows-only desktop software for it, oh well.

The most important part is getting the video. The popular open standard is RTSP. Many cameras have astonishingly poor RTSP implementations. See https://github.com/scottlamb/moonfire-nvr/wiki/Cameras:-Reol... for some of what I'm talking about. That ONVIF page (https://www.onvif.org/conformant-products/) says everything is fine for several Reolink models, but I don't believe it!

After that would be some way to get the analytics, assuming the camera has them and they're any good. If the ONVIF API works well, great, but a proprietary API isn't that bad IMHO as long as it's simple.

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Re:Managing and using ONVIF IP cameras with Linux by LinuxBender on Thursday October 20, 2022 @02:18PM (#33278591)
proprietary API isn't that bad

My opinion differs a little bit. If I buy a PTZ I know some here think those are a waste I expect to be able to control it from an open source application. If I can control all aspects of PTZ audio and video then that is good enough for me, but may not be good enough for others.

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Re:Managing and using ONVIF IP cameras with Linux by scottlamb on Thursday October 20, 2022 @02:24PM (#33278667)
I don't think proprietary APIs are mutually exclusive with open source clients. These APIs tend to be a lot simpler than ONVIF (SOAP is a mess) so they're easy to implement and even reverse-engineer (though there's often some documentation on the web). It's just a bit of work for each manufacturer.
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