Wha’s the best IP cameras that work good on WD? I know there’s many, but what are the most popular that people use just for WD.
Thanks
A number of people use Reolink cameras for their weather webcam. I would think Reolink works with WD but I chose to use IPTimelapse software instead of WD. It has nice features for timelapses, still images and live video (via YouTube or Facebook). You can see my weather webcam displays here: https://novawx.dscloud.me/wxcam-lapse.php, https://novawx.dscloud.me/wxcam.php, https://novawx.dscloud.me/wxcamlive.php.
I also wrote a summary of my setup here: http://discourse.weather-watch.com/p/564479.
I’ve used many cams over the years that worked well with WD. Initially my cams were primarily for security with WD being secondary. I enjoy being able to “see” the weather when I visit a site…as they say, a picture is worth a thousand words. So for me the cams I use must be capable of doing both security duty and work with WD. I prefer cams with RTSP capability so I can record them on my NVR. On the other hand I don’t want to spend big buck$ on them to get decent video quality. My Logitech 9000 cam was affordable and I used it for a few years with no complaints. I now run mostly Amcrest outdoor cams. With so many choices out there at different price points I doubt any particular brand is more popular and used with WD then any other. The trick is to find one that has picture quality you can live with, at price point you can live with, and is easily paired with WD.
I use the logitech Pro 9000 but I would like a reolink but I don’t think I would have the spare bandwidth, reolink have pretty good low light and show the stars and clouds at night.
Novawx… Is the PoE injector required to use the Reolink camera?
I can’t get a definite answer If the Reolink camera works directly with WD. I reached out to Brian and he said just to try it. I don’t want to buy a bunch of new stuff if it may not work with WD.
Alittleweird:
I have reoloinks and WD, so tell me what to do (since I am not hooked up to them) and I’ll try it to see if the Reolinks work with WD directly or not.
Dale
Hey Dale. Need to test the IP cam setup option in Webcamcapture program in WD to see if the reolink camera works. There will be a link that you’ll have to put in the setup to pull the image from the camera.
It’ll be a link something like this…
http://username:[email protected]:80/cgi-bin/api.cgi?cmd=Snap&channel=0&user=username&password=PASSWORD
Got your message, but won’t be able to test it tonight. I hope to tomorrow and get back to you . Dale
Thanks Dale.
I was messing around with another IP camera that I had laying around and by using this URL http://192.168.0.13/snapshot, Im able to get a single photo from the camera, but not able to view the camera itself in a browser “Edge”. That link also doesn’t work in WD either.
Yup. Reolink will work with WD. As noted you need to use the right link
Here’s some instructions I noted down on the weather.net.nz website:
Getting the images to the Raspberry Pi I'm using a Reolink IP Webcam. Before you go out and buy a webcam, one of the things you should consider is how easy it is to get an image off it. If you can find a URL you can call then you are good to go. For more ideas on what to look for when buying a camera, have a look here.For the Reolink I have, here’s the template to use to get the image I need:
http://(ip address)/cgi-bin/api.cgi?cmd=Snap&channel=0&rs=(any combination of numbers and letters)&user=(user name)&password=(user password)
For example, if your IP address is 192.168.2.119, the username is admin and the password is 123456, then the URL should be:
Once you have your webcam setup you should be able to use that URL in a web browser to get the image off the camera. Once you have figured out what url you need to use for your camera, substitute in the username, password and then drop the line into the address bar as you would for any other website. If it all works you should see an image from your camera.
My setup is for a RaspberryPi but I have had it running the same way on a Windows WD. You just need to set it up on the IP camera tab in Windows WD. There’s more info here on what to look out for when choosing a webcam: Finding a Webcam for your Weather Station - Latest News - New Zealand Weather Network
… and my Reolink RLC-511 (PoE powered) you can find here:
It has an ability to zoom in and out with auto-focus, for which I paid extra. But to be honest I just used it once to set it up so I wasn’t peering in the neighbours house! For my view, which is wide I did need something adjustable, but if your view is more of a standard security type view, I wouldn’t bother with the zoom function.
Haven’t found one yet that is good for landscape views like I have. There is a bit of barrell roll but the view is so good, it would be a shame not to share!
Cheers
I got my Reolink camera all setup but seeing a strange watermark on the pic coming from WD, but not when I look at the camera through the reolink software. The watermark changes color and moves around. I can’t tell what the watermark says, gets blurry when I zoom in on it. Pic attached.
Hi
What model cam did you get? Zooming in I’m guessing it is a warning about the sd-card, because the last few letters looks a bit like “card”. Could well be wrong though!
Are you using wd to provide the overlay or a third party software? I see there is also some info bottom right corner that seems out of place with the main text in black?
Nice image by the way!
I got the rlc-510a. You could be right about the sd card. I did not install one cause i didn’t think id need it. Im using wd to produce the image. I still have some fine tuning to do on the text locations.
Having another look, I don’t think it will be the sd-card. My RLC-511 doesn’t have one. When I look through the images on your site, then the text does seem to change.
If I remember correctly there are a couple of options you can tick. I think others might be able to help better than I can as I don’t currently have a working version of Windows WD.
I’m thinking that you may have ticked one too many options. From memory, the Bitmap overlay, the Free hand mouse overlay and the lines overlay using DIB are all unticked. Text custom tags are ticked as is shape overlay.
But others will be able to validate.
When it came to using the custom tag overlay, I didn’t change anything when I switched from my usb to the IP camera. They just stopped working once I made the camera switch.
On the floating watermark issue, Im still going to try a SD card in the camera just so I can rule that out.
Installing the SD card did nothing to help anything.
Strange - Only other thing I can think of is that under the #2 webcam setup tab, there shouldn’t be anything enabled, unless of course you have a second webcam! There is a custom overlay in there. Doubt that will be it though.
How easy is it to put the old camera back? If you do, do you still get the extra overlay?
Cheers
If you put the link in your browser what shows